Association Of Catholic Bloggers

    I find myself waiting on God--alot. I wait for him to show me the direction in which he wants me to go.   I wait on him for a clear sign. If you find yourself in a holding pattern, I would suggest you make the most of it.  Perhaps God is pruning your patience.  Maybe he is trying to get you to listen more closely.  Maybe he is trying to tell you that you are right where you need to be. Reading the tea leaves can be hard, but rather than trying to read them, it is more helpful to listen.  That can be the most important activity you need to be doing sometimes. If God wants us to move, he will let us know.  More often than not, we get in too much of a hurry, looking for the next thing, or what's around the corner. I had a Religious Ed. Director make an observation about me that I have found useful over the years.  We were doing a program that I thought needed to be changed.  She said, "Janet, every time we offer this, it is...

  Often our Faith presents us with difficult questions. Perhaps we just ignore them, or put them at the back of our mind to be dealt with at a later date, or never. Let us face up to some of them right now. CLICK HERE

  There has been a lot of news lately about the Alabama's Supreme Court ruling that embryos are children. As I write this, out of fear of retribution, clinics are discontinuing in vitro fertilization (IVF) at all stages, en masse, in Alabama. This is affecting women who have been preparing for IVF or who already have frozen embryos.  Will individuals and institutions be held responsible for taking a life, if the process ends up having embryos discarded, since it has been determined they are children?  That question is paralyzing those holding the embryos in abeyance, and the parents wanting to start or complete the process.   (To read the strange story about the couples who started it all, go to: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/the-alabama-supreme-courts-ruling-on-frozen-embryos ) We need to be sensitive to their situation, as these families are in great pain over the decision they made to embrace IVF. Unfortunately, our culture ignored the slippery s...

      We went away for the weekend and attended a Catholic Church unfamiliar to us. We were greeted at the door by a super-friendly Deacon who was opening up for confession. He was wonderful. He stood and chatted about sports with our son and encouraged us to make his church our "home away from home." I couldn't miss what an authentic, natural, evangelizing spirit he had. He was so joyful and attentive, even though I knew he had things to do at that moment.  He never made us feel that we were delaying him. Unfortunately, the Mass we attended felt quite the opposite of joyful. It was celebrated quasi-Latin. Now my intention is NOT to denounce anyone's freedom to worship that way, but it seems this church was trying to combine two ways of worship.  It was a Mass struggling to find itself. I say quasi-Latin, because the Priest's back was to the congregation, the Deacon lifted his chasuble during the consecration, there was a communion rail, and,...

A musician who's also a scientist found music in TRAPPIST-1 data. Meanwhile, 3D models help folks 'see' galaxies: and I found a Lenten connection in all that. Sonification and Switching Senses for Science TRAPPIST-1: A Planetary System With Resonance and Rhythm Scientific Sonification and the Cocktail Party Effect Tactile Perception: Making Mental Maps With 3D Models A Grain and Galaxies: Comparing the Incomparable More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Switching senses for science: sonification, 3D models of astronomical images, the cocktail party effect, and mental maps. And, briefly, a Lenten connection.

  The Transfiguration Blessed Fra Angelico [ Web Gallery of Art ] Fra Angelico  (c.1395 - 18 February 1455) was an Italian Dominican friar. He was beatified by Pope St John Paul 11 on 3 October 1992 and his feast day is observed on 18 February. Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Mark 9:2-10  ( English Standard Version Anglicised, India) After six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,   and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.   And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.   And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”...

  Click on this link to watch Part 1 of my conversation with Deacon Art Miller!     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5lOZ4M1JxE  Today we talk about Emmett Till and Deacon Art's family connection.  Learn about what happened to Emmett and the key decision his mother made that empowered the Civil Rights Movement. Part 2 will be coming soon! Janet Cassidy j anetcassidy.com https://www.facebook.com/reflectionsinfaith YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@janetcassidy      

  After reading an article about a couple whose 15 month old daughter died from a terminal disease, I can't resist clarifying a few things. You see, although it seems like a sweet idea--they had their daughter's ashes made into pretty, white stones--it's just not okay, on several levels. To honor the dead, we need to bury them (or their ashes in an urn) in a sacred, permanent place. They should not be stored at home. If anyone wishes to keep some of the ashes, they need to go to an ecclesial authority of the Church, who can evaluate the request. This is both "canonical and pastoral." Cremains are not to be scattered, spread under a tree, made into jewelry (or stones), put in a shotgun shell for your next turkey hunt, inserted in a coral reef, or shot into space (examples from cnn.com). Why? What's all the fuss about? Honor and respect for the human body. The cremains need to be carefully identified so that the name of the deceased is not forgotten. They m...

    Photo Credit CBS News                             My husband sent me a LINK about an article he read that I find quite disturbing ("Church without God: How secular congregations fill a need for some nonreligious Americans" by Jacqui Frost). Apparently, these "secular" churches are set up to imitate religious churches, except for their lack of a belief in God. They seem to be a sort of mishmash of beliefs (from those that share a desire for rituals using drugs, to ways to freeze yourself.) Those, in particular, are rather far out. My concern is that secular (atheist) "churches" might draw others away from God. At a basic level, we should just call them social groups, except, as I said, they try to imitate real churches by providing "secular ceremonies for major life transitions, like births, funerals and weddings." Of course, they have n...

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  Throughout December I went on and on about those little teacup doodle dogs. I know there is a debate about whether they are bred ethically, but I just thought they were so cute. I never really planned on getting one, but I pretty much watched every cute video available online and couldn't stop talking about them. My husband and I agree that a dog isn't in the cards for us (for various reasons), so you can imagine my surprise when I unwrapped one! Well, I suppose your first clue that I didn't get a REAL dog was that I had to unwrap it. My life-like stuffed dog is just as cute as all of the ones online (what a sweet gift), and it doesn't require any care or expense. An added benefit is that it sits very still on my lap so I can pet it :-) I guess my point to all of this is that while I recognize the difference between what is real and what is not, that isn't always the case for some people. There are people who do not believe that Jesus is real, that he did mir...

Sunday morning's incident is more than three hours down the road, but still registered as 'my part of the world'. Among the very few 'up' sides is that, so far, local and regional news has paid more attention to the folks who were doing their jobs, and less on the person who caused their deaths. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (A quick response to bad news from a town a few hours down the road from my home. Why I care, and why I don't blame technology.)

  You duped me . . . and I let myself be duped. These words from the prophet Jeremiah came to mind when I read about the death of Cecilia Gentili, a trans activist, whose outrageous funeral took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York recently. The organizer of her "service" admitted to keeping it "under wraps" when the request was made for a Catholic funeral. The issue wasn't that Gentili was trans. It was that the behavior of the crowd that gathered was sacrilegious and unbecoming of such a sacred place. I watched as two people publicly spoke, calling her SAINT Cecilia, "mother of all the wh*res." What could have been a dignified funeral, turned into a circus. The community that gathered for her funeral, duped the Church, which had opened its space for those who were grieving the loss of someone they cared about. Ironically, one attendee, who was interviewed, said; "Cecilia was a fighter. She was the one to say we belong in the spaces...

When I saw "epic importance" and "fossils" in the same headline, I figured whatever'd been found would be at least somewhat out of the ordinary. I've learned to take journalistic puffery with at least a few grains of salt. But this time, the fossils really were something important: exceptionally well-preserved samples from a 470,000,000 year old biome. "Epic Importance", Fabulous Fossils, and a Calamitous Crisis Down a Rabbit Hole — — And Out again Welcome to the Cabrières Biota Lobsters Do It, Maybe Trilobites Did It Lobopodians and Other Seriously Weird Critters Cabrières Biota Fossils: What's the Big Deal? Heraclitus and Life in a Changing World Ordovician Climate and Getting a Grip Two Biota and Increasing Diversity Gradual Cooling, Occasional Meteor Showers, and an Ice Age Living in a Vast and Ancient Universe ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Almost 400 fossils will show how life worked in a polar bio...

  The Repentant Peter El Greco [ Web Gallery of Art ] 'Repent and believe in the gospel'  (Mark 1:16; Gospel). Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Mark 1:12-15  ( English Standard Version Anglicised, India) The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.   And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,   and saying,  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”   Léachtaí i nGaeilge Cupola Decoration Early Coptic Painter [ Web Gallery of Art ] One of my teachers in the Columban seminary in the 1960s was a saintly priest, Fr Edward McCormack. Father Te...