Association Of Catholic Bloggers

I did a Google search for [patron saint depression] the other day, and got this gem: How did the Saints deal with depression?" [redacted] [August 2023] "There is no evidence they had depression, they lived in faith, that Everything is controlled by God, and they accepted God's Will in all ..." Not long before, someone in an online conversation had said 'I'm dealing with depression, and need help'. Along with potentially-helpful responses, someone chastised the supplicant. Seems that good Christians trust God and never experience such things as depression. That gave me this week's topic. Dealing With Depression — and Suicide Depression, Faith, and Making Decisions Assorted Saints Teresa of Ávila: Mystic and Troublemaker Becoming a Saint Cultural Legacies and a Disclaimer João Duarte Cidade, AKA Saint John of God Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Poverty, Terminal Illness, and Ham Sandwiches Doing My Daily Prayers Dark Night of the Soul...

St. Patrick's Day is a public holiday in Ireland (Republic of and Northern), Newfoundland, Labrador, and Montserrat. It's a day when folks wear something green. I've heard that some even drink green beer. Why anyone would think green beer is a good idea is beyond me, and that's another topic. Chicago celebrates by turning the city's river green. If today's holiday post looks familiar, maybe you're remembering the one I wrote three years back. This one was going to be shorter. But aside from eschewing asides about Ptronius Maxiums, a Roman Emperor whose body got tossed in the Tiber, and Suffolk County's Evacuation Day 1 — fact is, I ended up adding a few paragraphs, and polishing the rest: Pick a Peck of Prickly Problems Protest, Perspectives, and — King Lear?! Previous Prickly Problems "...I am a Sinner" — St. Patrick, Shamrocks and All That Shamrocks Legends and a Forbidden Pit Saints Due Process New and Improved Fo...

Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) in Sauk Centre, Minnesota: northwest entrance. (September 20, 2022) "First, the good news. As far as I know, nobody got hurt during last weekend's incident. "That much I could tell from what wasn't in a metro area station's news item...." One statue tipped, urine on the carpet, a damaged cross. The Saturday morning trashing spree showed lack of respect for the folks in this parish. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(From Farragutful, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.) (Interior of St. Jude the Apostle Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Florida.) One thing's certain. Well, actually, quite a few things are certain. Something that's certain about Saint Jude the Apostle is that he's not Judas Iscariot. Which may take some explaining. Then again, maybe not. In any case, "Jude" and "Judas" look like two different names in English translations of the Bible. But they're two ways of transliterating the same name, יְהוּדָה, Y'hudah, into my language's version of the Latin alphabet.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Jude, Saints, a letter, dead emperors and how Nero handled a public relations problem. Plus Elizabethan playwrights, chorizo and making sense.)

March 17 is St. Patrick's Day. It's a public holiday in Ireland, Newfoundland and Labrador. Chicago plumbers celebrate by turning the city's river green. It's a day when folks wear something green, and I've heard that some even drink green beer. Why anyone would think green beer is a good idea is beyond me, and that's another topic. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Today's Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time. It's also Saint Apollonia's feast day.... ...St. Apollonia isn't on my diocesan or national liturgical calendar. Not that I've seen, at any rate. That's not, or shouldn't be, a big surprise. The Catholic Church is literally catholic, καθολικός, katholikos, universal. Some things we do, like reading the Bible, are universal. Some aspects of our worship are regional or local. 1 ( September 30, 2018 ) I figure devotion to St. Apollonia hasn't been part of my place and time's life. Which is okay. Today's reading — right! That's what got me started. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Daniel Lewis Lee died this morning. That's unremarkable, by itself. Roughly 150,000 people die every day. Cause of death varies. Diseases kill some of us. Others die in accidents. Civil authorities kill those who deserve death. In their government's opinion.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I believe that it is a holiday that has become completely distorted from its original intent. Halloween comes from the phrase, All Hallowed Eve, denoting the eve of All Saints Day; a day where we honor those who have journeyed before us, who won the crown of Heaven. In the 21 st  century, we now view October 31 st  as a day to trick or treat; to wear costumes hiding our real appearance and watch horror movies. I don’t like any of those things, as the root of how we spend the day is in glorifying evil. We do so by wearing fake blood with a fake hatchet sitting on top of our heads. We send our children out asking for candy from complete strangers; from the very people that we tell our children, on the remaining 364 days, to stay away from. Then we come home and turn on a horror movie like  Nightmare on Elm Street . Why do we do such things? Because evil is more understandable than the Divine. We can so easily relate to evil, as ...

Every society, every culture has a tradition of a  scapegoat:  a person or group of people to blame and punish for the sins of that particular society. Centuries ago, old women were blamed for poor crops, cows which failed to produce milk and any birth defects. Less superstitious societies turned on each new group of immigrants to blame for their economic woes and rising crime rates. And, at the beginning of the spiritual life when we are confronted with our own sinfulness and those around us, we also tend to act just like scapegoats. Even if we live a devout, disciplined, ascetic lifestyle with a daily round of Mass, rosaries, Eucharistic Adoration and frequent confession, most of us still fall into this scapegoat trap as we try to become devoted disciples of Jesus. Suffering For Our Own Sins When we suffer in isolation for our own failings or act like a scapegoat who suffers as the result of others who sin against us, we like to think of ourselves as saintly mart...

Only a few weeks before she passed, I could not sleep and got up in the middle of the night. I heard God say, "Go see her." I drove to Nashville and back a few Saturdays before her death and am so glad I did. I was so worried because I knew she had been on hospice for nearly 2 years, so I wasn't sure if she would be ok or just wasting away in agony.  I was so surprised when I got there. She was smiling, giving me advice even in her last weeks.  Her witness was, "Life is fragile, handle with prayer." She pointed to the gold cross on the wall and told me the youth pastor at her church in Franklin Pastor Wayne had given it to her, and she had it ever since. This experience reminded me of the movie I saw recently:   A Wrinkle in Time.   As the children look for their father, they see images of him trapped in a dark web, struggling to get out.  When Meg Murry finally gets to him, he is standing in a glowing orange and red square, and he's not just OK, he is down...

Pip's Christmas doesn't have much to do with Christmas, or Advent, but I figured this post should have something that looks 'seasonal.' "...Blessed is the One Who Takes No Offense at Me" We'll be hearing Matthew 11:2 - 11 this morning. The readings still aren't particularly 'Christmassy.' " 2 When John heard in prison 3 of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to him " 4 with this question, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?' "Jesus said to them in reply, 'Go and tell John what you hear and see: " 5 the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. "And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.' " ( Matthew 11:4 - 6 ) Our Lord balanced that rebuke with a reminder of the Baptist's great function in Matthew 11:7 - 15 , and a complai...

Today is the feast of St. Edmund Campion, Jesuit priest and English Elizabethan martyr. His story was told in 1935 by Evelyn Waugh, better known for his fiction, chief of which in my estimation is  Brideshead Revisited.   Waugh wrote in the Preface to  Saint Edmund Campion  that he was not attempting a scholar’s approach to his subject. All I have sought to do is to select incidents which strike a novelist as important and to put them into a narrative which I hope may prove readable. The facts are not in dispute so I have left the text unencumbered by notes or bibliography. It should  be read as a simple, perfectly true story of heroism and holiness. I’m marking the saint’s feast by re-reading Waugh’s book about him. When we think of English Catholic martyrs nowadays, I think most thoughts turn to St. Thomas More – a man worth remembering, to be sure. Campion more than holds in own in such company. His apologia to the Queen’s Privy Council as he was unde...

I read The Fulfillment of All Desire , by Ralph Martin, in preparation to give a prayer and spirituality retreat. This book offered much advice on how to live a more spiritual life with examples set by such greats as Augustine, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Frances de Sales and God’s little flower, Theresé of Lisieux. I learned that the fulfillment of all desire comes from a life of prayer and modeling our behavior to that of Christ. For when we become more Christ-like we unite with the pinnacle of our desire – that of Christ himself. The book is lengthy, with numerous quotes from the works of the saints. Ralph Martin lets the saints tell the story of how one might develop the fulfillment of all desire. If I had one complaint, it is that the quotes were too numerous. I say that because I am familiar with Ralph Martin having watched him on EWTN. The man is a brilliant and esteemed professor of Theology. With that said, I hoped that... Read more... 

Mother Teresa of Kolkata /Calcutta gets canonized today. Here's how she described herself: "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus." (" Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), ," vatican.va ) She established the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 and died in 1997, but the Missionaries of Charity are still around: giving “ wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor ." Their facilities don't look much like Mayo Clinic here in Minnesota, or Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand; and that's another topic. One of these days I'll probably ramble on about Saints, miracles, and canonization. But today I'll say that a Saint is someone recognized by the Church as someone who practiced heroic virtue and is currently dead, and leave it at that. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 828 , and s...

I think most, if not all, Catholics like the idea of becoming a saint. Not because everyone wants official recognition but because the bottom line is: saints are in heaven and that’s where we want to be. In this way, the saints become a beacon of hope, a confirmation that the daily struggle is worth plowing through, because success is possible. Raised in a strong Catholic family, I grew up reading and loving the lives of the saints. I knew from a young age that these people were close to Jesus, and I hoped that some day, I would be close to Jesus too. Our desire for sanctity, in itself, is a good thing – it’s a reflection of our longing for God and innate sense that our hearts are made for him. So looking for some sort of formula or solid role model to follow is natural. Hence the importance we place in our faith on the saints and their example. Over time, however, I realized that finding inspiration in the saints was different from finding a realistic and imitable example...

Learning to Love with the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir , by Jean M. Heimann, is a beautiful story of Jean’s life and love for Jesus. In this book, Jean artfully uses quotes from Saint Theresé of Lisieux, Saint John Paul II and Saint Teresa of Avila to help her tell her life’s story of pain and suffering, joy and sorrow, but most of all, her love for Christ. Visit my website. Make a comment regarding this post on my website before 11:59 p.m. 5/23/16, and you might win your own autographed copy. Read more here...

"...'Brother Wolf, you have killed and pillaged like a wanton criminal, and for that you deserve punishment! But accept instead the forgiveness of all the men you have wronged. Come now, here is my hand. In the name of the Holy One, come to me, and pledge that from this day on you will live at peace with men. Come!'... "...He was only in time to see the berserker-wolf take the last hesitant step of its advance. To see it raise one metal paw — and with its steel claw-fingers gently touch the kneeling friar's extended hand...." That's from Fred Saberhagen's "Brother Berserker." The "berserker-wolf" part of Saberhagen's tale is based on a legend in " Fioretti di San Francesco ," written a century and a half after Francis of Assisi died. "Firoetti" is probably the most popular collection of stories about Saint Francis: but "Scripta Leonis, Rufini et Angeli Sociorum S. Francisci," compiled by Brot...

Carving of St. Patrick at My Parish Church Some of my Chicago Irish Facebook friends humorously posted that Valentine Day indicates that St. Patrick Day will be here soon.  The Chicago Irish, like American Irish in other large cities, celebrate St. Patrick Day in a big way.  And one doesn’t have to be ethnically Irish to join in the festivities. I have observed in the past decade or so that St. Patrick Day Celebrations, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, have degenerated into a kind of day of debauchery, especially characterized by drunkenness and overall immoderation.  This sort of celebration is a far cry from how I remember St. Patrick Day celebrations in our family, perhaps a half century ago.  Also, it seems to dishonor, rather than to honor, St. Patrick, the one whose holiness Catholics celebrate on that day More  here.

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Every month, my dear friend Tiffany at Life of a Catholic Librarian and I pair up and share a saint whose feast day is celebrated within the respective month. The saint has to speak to us. This month, I didn't know who I would "adopt". I opened my Magnificat for January, and flipped to read the last pages first, don't you? The artwork is always stunning. There she was, St. Agnes found me. St. Agnes was born c. 291 A.D. Her feast day is January 21st, but before 1970, an additional feast was celebrated on January 28th. More important than when St. Agnes was born was when and how she died. When St. Agnes was thirteen years old, she refused Eutropius, then the son of the prefect of Rome. Eutropius fell in love (some say lust) with the young girl and just had to have her. He tried to win her over with gold and jewels, asking her parents for Agnes' hand in marriage. She flatly refused claiming that she already belonged to someone else. How could this be? How could...