The altar is dressed with a desert scene with cactus and black fabric... Jesus on the cross too has the dark colors of Lent shrouding HIM. Our thoughts and prayers and penance goes inward to find newness of LIFE, that comes with the Easter ahead. Christ comes to dwell more fully in us as we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome a stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner! It is Christ to whom we are ministering!
With the knowledge that we will be having a new Pope - it is always funny to hear the liberal press start speaking about how there needs to be major changes in the Church to bring it into modern day. I just read an article this morning that is very short and sweet in answer to this question - http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2013/02/quote-of-day_19.html I laughed with a hoot when I read this, after he had spoken about how there are so many leaving the Church and should the Church therefore change...
"Blessed Mother Teresa was once asked what in her opinion was the first thing that would have to change in the Church. Her answer was: you and I."
Yes, the Church will not change her values and Truth. How can you change the Truth?
The reminder that the Church must stay apart from the world - "desecularized"- how can the Truth be compromised in order to appeal to those that have embraced the world? There must be a change of heart in you and I, in order for there to be true happiness in the midst of the darkness of sin and death! There is an epidemic of those in the Church that disregard the Church's teachings on arificial birth control, and I think if you took a survey this would be one of the first things that many would think should be changed. Yet, there are so many that have researched this and the stand is not done lightly, but by the glaring LIGHT of the Truth! The fact that using artificial birth control interferes with the work of God in creation of LIFE and LOVE, and takes this work of God into our own hands is damaging to our relationship with HIM as well as allows that selfish sinfulness to enter into our marriage/family! Every time we celebrate our marriage with the "marital embrace" we are to be open to LIFE and LOVE which may result! That is why the Church tells us that if we must wait for family for reasons that come along we should abstain at times of fertility! If you want to look up a great way of accomplishing this check out http://www.creightonmodel.com/. And if you want to talk to someone - our daughter,Ruth Lanoue, is a consultant. Her number 507-532-1019. Abstaining is hard, yet it is very powerful in the sharing of this as a couple - it, as all crosses in our lives, brings the couples to a stronger faith and prayerlife as they share this responsibility! If you still question this... I would ask that you read and study the Church's stand on this, or any other issue you have with the Teachings of the Church! We are not shopping cart Catholics - picking and choosing what we want to follow. The Church is there to help us to get to Heaven, and to walk in the Truth with our Loving and Forgiving Savior. Do not turn your back on the Truth, which they uphold! Study and look into why The Teachings are laid out for us... with great minds, and thoughts, and prayers behind them. If you are looking for a change in the Church with the coming of the new Pope, instead look at how you can change to embrace the Truth/Church!
Grandpa, our family's champion for LIFE, with his arms full of his two new granddaughters!
How appropriate that today in the Gospel, in Matthew 6, Jesus teaches us how to pray - The Our Father! These are the words we repeat daily over and over - for me with my rosary up to 10 decades... that means that I repeat it 11 times just in that... "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Is that saying that Jesus and his Bride, The Church, needs to change? No, that is saying that we need to change, and embrace the Cross of faith in order to find LIFE and LOVE! The secular world is holding out all that is easy, and revolves around having a life that makes us happy and feels good, and we start to think "Why not?" But this is not leading us to True Happiness, or LIFE, or real honest LOVE, which is shown us in the Cross! It is in our Lord and his Bride, the Church, that we find our Home - our small slice of Heaven here on earth. We are called to bring the Church into our homes - a domestic church/family with Christ in the center, and our humble Mother of God at his side!
Life is so precious, Lord! How can we limit children to have more things?
Jesus, we are so blessed by the Truth we find in your Church! We know that we must follow after YOU, as we carry our Most Cherished Cross. Yes, the Church must protect herself from the world, and set herself apart so that we can be more fully yours, Lord. So that our prayer to you - "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." - may truly come to pass in our lives with YOU. Evil has become so relative to us, and we just shrug it off as "not that bad." Yet, it is pulling us into a selfish heartset, in which we think that we need to be on the throne of our lives. We need to step down and trust in YOU,sweet Jesus, as you show us the path to take through your Church! We are trusting that the new Pope will continue to guide and protect us with the unchangeable Truth. We place the next month leading up to Easter in your hands, O Lord! We will be blessed by this change of leadership in our True Church, and may each of us ponder how we need to have a change of heart to follow you more closely, O Lord! Jesus, we trust in you. Amen and Halleluia
"The Church, in other words, must constantly rededicate herself to her mission. The three Synoptic Gospels highlight various aspects of the missionary task. The mission is built upon personal experience: “You are witnesses” (Lk 24:48); it finds expression in relationships: “Make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19); and it spreads a universal message: “Preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). Through the demands and constraints of the world, however, the witness is constantly obscured, the relationships are alienated and the message is relativized. If the Church, in Pope Paul VI’s words, is now struggling “to model itself on Christ's ideal”, this “can only result in its acting and thinking quite differently from the world around it, which it is nevertheless striving to influence” (Ecclesiam Suam, 58). In order to accomplish her mission, she will constantly set herself apart from her surroundings, she needs in a certain sense to become unworldly or “desecularized”." Rocco Palmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9AK7kr6PsY Francesca Battistelli
Be Born in me (Mary) For a true example of humility... look to Mary. I will never forget when I was struggling with humility in my marriage - my mom sent me the litany of humility and I thought how can anyone pray this!?!
Litany of Humility Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930),
Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X
"O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…"
Lord, teach us your Truth about being humble in our marriage/domestic Church! We want to die to self so that YOU may LIVE in our hearts and the hearts of our homes!
News flash!!!! New pictures of Patrick on Maria's blog - He just rolled over for the first time and he is soooooooo happy!!!
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