Association Of Catholic Bloggers

It seems to makes perfect sense, especially to me—a person who loves autumn!—to find the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, during autumn. Rosh Hashana is the New Year which begins with a ten day period of prayer, self-examination, and desire to repent and return to God. These ten days end with Yom Kippur (this year it is at sundown on October 3 rd ) which is the holiest day for Jews; it is the day in which requests are made to be written in the Book of Life. Part of the Rosh Hashana celebrations will include sounding the shofar and eating foods that are rich in symbolism as well as flavor! The significance of the shofar is found throughout Scripture but the specific reason for the sound of it during Rosh Hashana is found in  Leviticus  23:23-25: The Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you shall keep a Sabbath rest, with a sacred assembly and with the trumpet blasts as a reminder; you shall then do no sort of work, and you shall o...

Queen of Sheba before Solomon Nicolaus Knüpfer, 1640s [ Web Gallery of Art ] The First Reading from today's Mass, 1 Kings 10:1-10 ( NRSVCE ) When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon  she came to test him with hard questions.  She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones; and when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind.  Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.  When the queen of Sheba had observed all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built,  the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his valets, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the  Lord , there was no more spirit in her. So she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your accomplishments and...

I don’t really follow Pope Francis; however, as a Catholic I certainly regard the pope with the respect and honor due his position as successor to Peter. What I do read about him, I tend to get from my friends. He seems to be loved or hated and certainly has made people sit up and take notice. I also don’t watch the news in general or read much on the Internet—secular, Catholic or otherwise. I am not on Facebook and I don’t do Twitter. I’ve made a conscious effort in the past couple of years to purposely reduce the chaos of the world by limiting my exposure to it so that my own world now feels purer and a whole lot more peaceful. Amidst that peace, I’ve recently begun researching “Sophia” for my third and final fiction book in a series that started with Elizabeth: A Holy Land Pilgrimage . I share this because my research about this seemingly elusive, somewhat mystical, and definitely female Sophia/Wisdom/Mother keeps crossing paths with what I’ve read about Pope Francis. Fra...

If you are anywhere near my age (1976 high school graduation) and are a female, you may now be at a point where the aftertaste of radical feminism has started to disappear. You’ve also successfully waded through a culture that embraced new-age thinking and have now arrived at real truths. Unfortunately, the result of the particular journey that many of us have been on is that we, in direct opposition to the false messages of radical feminism and the new age movement have really lost out on something that I have only recently discovered: God as Mother. Sophia. Years ago I wrote my first fiction book titled Elizabeth:A Holy Land Pilgrimage . In the book, Elizabeth’s daughter is named Sophia. At the time I knew no one with that name and it had no special meaning to me. I just knew that Sophia was supposed to be the name of the daughter in the book. The second fiction book I wrote is titled Miriam:Repentance and Redemption in Rome . Sophia, as Elizabeth’s daughter, is also part ...