Association Of Catholic Bloggers

With all these violent events around the world ¿Is there any chance for peace? How can Catholics react to terrorism and fanatism? We can turn our hearts to a powerful weapon that already has won wars and saved nations from epidemics: OUR LADY´S ROSARY. Let´s take this powerful weapon recommended by  the Virgin Mary in our hands and unite in the way our Church has taught us: all together to achieve peace in our wounded world.     Spanish http://articulosdeapologeticacatolica.blogspot.mx/2014/10/el-santo-rosario-y-la-batalla-de-lepanto.html  

Pope Francis described the Jubilee Year of Mercy back in April 2015 in his official document,  Misericordiae Vultus . The final paragraph of that document knocks my socks off. Here's my favorite part: “In this Jubilee Year, let us allow God to surprise us. He never tires of casting open the doors of his heart and of repeating that he loves us and wants to share his love with us.” — Misericordiae Vultus, ¶25 Let us allow God to surprise us! Amen! I'm excited to journey intentionally through this Year of Mercy. On this December 8th morning, though, as we begin the jubilee, I am thinking less about what   I  plan on doing and more on what God can do. Truly, I am overwhelmed at what the Lord wants to offer us. “From the heart of the Trinity, from the depths of the mystery of God, the great river of mercy wells up and overflows unceasingly. It is a spring that will never run dry, no matter how many people draw from it. Every time someone is in need, he o...

On this  most difficult day  I am thinking about death. Last night, on my way out of my graduate class in Jersey City, a friend texted me to let me know our next door neighbor's infant son had died suddenly. I spent the long drive home talking to Ruth. When I got home at 11 p.m., I sat in my car in the driveway, crying and still talking with her and noting that all the lights were on in the family's home and all the shades drawn. My friend and I were grieving, trying to make sense of the unimaginable. "There has been a lot of death lately," I told her. Keep Reading...

I had not been to the World Trade Center site in about five years, hadn't taken that big escalator up to ground level, hadn't seen World Trade One or Four or seen the memorial site.  My friend M. and I on Saturday took the PATH train to the World Trade Center. Our final destination was about a fifteen-minute walk away and this was the quickest way there from New Jersey.  During this journey, my heart was full, remembering: how I used to take the double stroller here with our two boys to visit my husband at work up on the 68th floor of Tower One and to have lunch at the Stage Door Deli, how one sunny fall day we lost friends who risked their lives in the buildings so that others could escape, how my husband managed to survive even though he waited and made sure everyone on his floor was accounted for before he headed down the stairwell.  Keep Reading...

It felt as if someone had taken a load of bricks and thrown them onto my chest. Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. My husband, who walked out of Tower One 11 minutes before it fell, still is with me. He's alive to help me guide our two boys to adulthood, to make awesome chicken wings, and to coach middle school basketball. So why did I cry - no why did I  sob  - so many tears today? Keep Reading...

When a passenger plane carrying 87 people from Boston was deliberately flown by five al-Quaeda hijackers into Tower One of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001, my husband was standing his desk on the 68th floor. He was knocked to the floor by the impact. Right now as I type this, he's sitting next to me on the family sofa.  Keep Reading Here...

As you might know, my husband is a  trauma survivor   who faces post-traumatic stress disorder. Greg somehow survived the Sept. 11 terror attacks and he also lost dozens of colleagues. He and I continue to consider what it all means. We both have what we call "trauma fatigue" meaning we are not able to immerse ourselves in the details of other acts of inhumanity, such as the deadly violence that occurred in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater last week. We haven't watched the nonstop cable news reports, or read any of the extensive newspaper coverage. Keep Reading...

Greg is 48 today. He is a magnificent man. Our lives are happy and full. Today our oldest made us breakfast and while Greg and I continued our Mad Man marathon. We started watching the show this year, and a friend has loaned us Seasons One and Two DVDs. Greg went to the 11 a.m. Mass; I will take the boys to the 8 p.m. Mass. When he returned, we kept up our marathon. Read more here...

By Greg Trevor When the moment finally came – after nearly 10 years of waiting – I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t move. I was falling asleep on the night of May 1, 2011, when my wife, Allison, walked into our bedroom, tapped me on the shoulder and said: “The president is about to go on TV. They got bin Laden and he’s dead.” “Thank God,” I replied. I tried to get out of bed but couldn’t. The death of bin Laden brought back so many painful memories from surviving the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Read more here...

 (photo by Jan Johannessen, AFP/Getty Images / July 23, 2011 ) Vi sørger med deg, Norge. (We grieve with thee, Norway.) Kan dine barn hvile i fred. ( May thy children rest in peace.)B By Allison Salerno If our family's experience over the last 10 years is any guide, I urge you to pray for Norway, the land of the midnight sun. They are suffering from the worst violence in their land since World War II. Stop pontificating. Pray for the souls of the departed, pray for their families, pray for those who survived these attacks too. Believe me, their lives will forever be altered by this violence. I'm the wife of a man who narrowly escaped Tower One of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2011. He and his colleagues climbed down the stairs from the 68th floor within 11 minutes of the tower falling. We did not fi...