Association Of Catholic Bloggers

I take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. As a Catholic I have to, and I'll get back to that. I also pay attention to what some of the best minds of the last few thousand years thought about this sort of thing: " 12 I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, " those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, " those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away. " ( 1 Corinthians 7:29 - 31 ) - - - which is why I still think my youthful decision to stay out of the rat race was right. ( December 13, 2015 ; May 3, 2015 ) I don't, however, take what folks like Harold Camping say seriously. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(From Wereldburger758, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.) Lent is a time for me to improve myself, right? That will be a by-product of what I do, but — no. Lent isn't about me. It's like the rest of the annual cycle of Advent, Lent Easter: we're reviewing and, in a sense, re-living what our Lord did, two millennia back now. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1095 ) Lent is when we join Jesus in the desert. Sort of. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Last week I talked about why I don't try to be someone I'm not: more specifically, why I don't insist that God equip me with what's trending in charisms. Also spirit-filled administrators and loose cannons . ( January 24, 2016 ) That Sunday's second Scripture reading got me started: 1 Corinthians 12:12 - 30 . Today's second reading, 1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:13 , picks up on the next verse: " Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.... " ( 1 Corinthians 12:31 ) I could stop there, and claim that everybody should start clamoring for "the greatest spiritual gifts." I've talked about cherry picking before. It's a bad idea.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

On Wednesday, December 2, 2015, at about 6:59 p.m. UTC, 10:59 a.m. PST, two people killed 14 others at a holiday office party in San Bernardino, California. The killers were located and stopped a few hours later, and died during an armed confrontation with law enforcement. I put names of the dead, and a few links, at the end of this post. 1 I'm still experiencing anger, disgust, and several other emotions in connection with this latest mass murder. It's an unpleasant sensation, but I'd probably be more concerned if I didn't notice any emotional response. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

My husband, Michael, and I have been married for 36 years, and we are happy and still in love. Surprisingly, we have become one in reality, deeply in tune with each other’s spirits even though we are still opposites in personality. Our tangible joy is inexplicable through secular eyes, because from all outward appearances our life together has been a tough journey including poverty, nine kids, overwhelming chores on a small family farm and long-term, clinical depression. Accessing Power in the Sacrament of Marriage The grace available in the Sacrament of Marriage is not some esoteric theology;  it is real and it is powerful. The power available in the sacrament is what kept my husband and I together through the rough years. We both understood, beyond a doubt, that God brought us together. We never questioned this basic call from God, our vocation together, even during the dark years. I have always managed to keep our difficulties in perspective through humour.  One of my jo

(From Anne Sophie Chaisemartin/AP, via New York Daily News, used w/o permission.) (" Victims of a shooting attack lay on the pavement outside La Belle Equipe restaurant in Paris Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Well over 100 people were killed in Paris on Friday night in a series of shooting, explosions. " (New York Daily News)) I've read that Friday's attacks in Paris are the fault of right-wing hate-mongers, that America's president is to blame — — — and the American election is still nearly a year off. I am not looking forward to the usual self-serving balderdash.... ...I am pretty sure that Muslims who blame France, America, and Western civilization for their problems are sincere, too. But the grand imam of Al-Azhar called Friday's attack "odious," Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb said it was "heinous," and Saudi King Salman called it "repugnant." 1 ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(From Starbucks, via AP/KOMONews.com, used w/o permission.) America's presidential campaigns may explain some of this week's sturm und drang : 1 " Outcry, pushback escalate over Starbucks holiday cup flap " Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer, via KOMONews.com (November 10, 2015) " Is Starbucks Waging 'War on Christmas'? Red Cup Stirs Controversy " Sarah Whitten, CNBC (November 10, 2015) " Starbucks red cup controversy: The view from Chicago " Greg Trotter, Chicago Tribune (November 10, 2015) I put a mercifully-brief excerpt from each of those items at the end of this post. 2 Hats off to the Chicago Tribune's Greg Trotter, for his "extremely unscientific survey" regarding the latest looming crisis. Tongue in cheek is, I think, a reasonable attitude toward the Starbuck's holiday coffee cups "controversy." Interestingly, I haven't heard a peep about the Starbucks Veteran's Day cup, which rese

You might recognize this as lyrics from Carly Simon 's Have You Seen Me Lately album: the fourth track. " ...And life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.... " (Quite a few folks) I ran into it as part of a prayer by Fr. Bede Jarrett , who had said he was repeating something William Penn wrote. Rossiter W. Raymond wrote the lines into his " Death is Only an Horizon " poem. I'll get back to a longer excerpt from Fr. Jarrett's prayer: after talking about death, life, love, and all that. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

" The New Evangelization calls each of us to deepen our faith, believe in the Gospel message and go forth to proclaim the Gospel. The focus of the New Evangelization calls all Catholics to be evangelized and then go forth to evangelize.... " (" New Evangelization ," USCCB 1 ) In a way, the "new" evangelization isn't new. Matthew 28:19 means the same thing now that it did two millennia ago. But it isn't the first, or the 11th, century any more. We're in the 21st, and the world is changing. This isn't a new situation: " ...the world is on fire. Men try to condemn Christ once again, as it were, for they bring a thousand false witnesses against him. They would raze his Church to the ground.... No, my sisters, this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.... " (Camino de perfección, 1, 5; St. Teresa of Avila; quoted by Benedict XVI on July 16, 2012) 1 ) St. Teresa of Avila wrote Camino de perfección

Nine people died last Thursday, at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. A little while later, their killer also died: Lucero Alcaraz, 19 Treven Taylor Anspach, 20 Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18 Quinn Glen Cooper, 18 Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59 Lucas Eibel, 18 Jason Dale Johnson, 33 Lawrence Levine, 67 (teacher) Sarena Dawn Moore, 44 the killer, 26 ( CNN ) Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said that he was not going to use the killer's name, since one of the killer's goals was almost certainly to gain notoriety. ( BBC News ) I think that is probably a good idea. What I have to say doesn't require the killer's name. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

If your hand leads you to sin, cut it off. If your eye leads you to sin, pluck it out. John 17 These are the words spoken in Sunday's Gospel. Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? We often think of the words spoken in this Gospel as hypothetical examples of the extreme. Jesus  didn't really mean cut off your hand for taking something that doesn't belong to you; He didn't really mean pluck your eye out for looking greedily or lustfully at another. That sounds more like Sharia law. Surely He couldn't have meant that! Jesus certainly did not want to impose Sharia law upon Christians. He wasn't like that. Sharia law is designed to punish. Sharia law is meant to cause pain. Sharia law is imposed on one person by another. Sharia law is man's weak attempt to impose justice on an unjust world. Sharia law is intended to provide revenge for those who feel, correctly or incorrectly, wronged. Jesus was not about providing justice in an unjust worl

19 folks killed nearly 3,000 other people on September 11, 2001 . They were waging Osama bin Laden's religious war against the United States. 14 years later, Osama bin Laden is dead, and a great many more folks have died in various 'holy wars.'... ...A third of a million people fled their homelands this year, heading for Europe. The survivors may or may not find shelter there. 1 ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Today, as I was perusing the  New York Times  online edition, I was thrilled to find an absolutely beautiful  photographic essay on life inside a cloistered monastery . I loved the piece for many reasons, not least because it gave me a glimpse of the life I might have led had I chosen to walk through that lovely door, instead of the one that led me to the very lovely life I chose, instead.  I hope you find it as enchanting as I did.   You may find the larger article  here . From  How to Live A Lovely Life  by Sabrina Booth Phillips 

I ran into a familiar sentiment on Twitter: " Sometimes I wish I was religious so I could have an excuse for hating people. " Instead of seething with anger, I did a quick Google search. The phrase, with exactly those words, showed up about 60 times. The earliest example I found was posted by a bot on reddit.com , December 28, 2011. Without the quotes, I got roughly 35,200,000 matches. That's a lot of folks talking about religion and hate. Some agreed with the "excuse for hating people" quote, some didn't, and some were talking about something completely different. The "excuse for hating" quote hadn't been directed at me, and came from an account that Tweets a lot of platitudes and quotations. Instead of firing back a response, I started writing this post. That was on Monday of this week.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I rarely repost but this list is a treasure trove of common sense and practical.  32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does. 33. Believe in miracles. 34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do. 35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now. 36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young. 37. Your children get only one childhood. 38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved. continue

I was getting ready to talk about 1 Kings 4 - 8 and John 6:41 - 51 , two of today's Bible readings, when I read about Niloy Neel: (From Facebook, via BBC News, used w/o permission.) (" Niloy Neel was an atheist from a Hindu background " (BBC News))... Niloy Neel's killers probably thought they were committing an execution, not a murder. Either way, Niloy Neel is dead: and quite a few other folks in Bangladesh are in serious danger. At first glance, this looks like something that doesn't matter to me. I'm not an atheist; my life hasn't been threatened; and I live in central North America: a long way from Bangladesh. But "atheist" bloggers in Bangladesh are human, I'm Catholic: so I must care about them, and everyone else.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Dozens of times in the Gospels, Jesus "amazes" his listeners. Here are a few of my favorites: They were amazed, saying "What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?" -Matthew 8:27 They were on the way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went ahead of them. They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them what was going to happen to him. -Mark 10:32 And all who were with him were amazed at the catch.  -Luke 5:9 Does Jesus amaze us? Is he so shockingly unique that we, his followers, are sometimes a little afraid of him? Read on at Praying with Grace ! Gold Aurei of the Twelve Caesars. Gift of C. Ruxton Love Jr., 1967.  www.metmuseum.or

Thousands of people will pour into Philadelphia this September to celebrate the Eighth World Meeting of Families with Pope Francis.  On June 25 , the Vatican officially presented the theme for the event: Love is our mission: the family fully alive Lovely! On the other hand, do I want my family to be  fully  alive? That sounds like a handful. There are, after all, so many ways to be alive. My neighbor is alive at 6:50 am every Saturday and Sunday, cleaning his deck with a leaf blower powered by an engine from a Boeing 747. Alive was the man who cut me off in traffic yesterday, swearing at me colorfully through his open window. Children who fight over whose turn it is to wash the dishes? Very much alive. © ezepov/Getty Images Sometimes "alive" feels more like "undead." But the World Meeting theme recalls the famous line by the second century theologian St. Irenaeus: "The the Glory of God is man fully alive." Pope St. John Paul II admired Irenae

A young man joined a Wednesday evening Bible study group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this week After participating for about an hour, he killed nine of the folks there and left. I'm angry, and sad, that nine lives were unjustifiably ended in that church: and am profoundly impressed at the calm shown by some of the victims' relatives. In my considered opinion, what the young man did was wrong. I'll get back to why I think that's true: and what I'm doing about my anger and sorrow. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .