From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop
The heart of the just man will rejoice in the LordThe just man will rejoice in the Lord and put his hope in him; the hearts of all good men will be filled with joy. We must surely have sung these words with our hearts as well as with our voices. Indeed, the tongue of the Christian expresses his deepest feelings when it addresses such words to God. The just man will rejoice, not in the world, but in the Lord. Light has dawned for the just, Scripture says in another place, and joy for the upright of heart. Were you wondering what reason he has for joy? Here you are told: The just man will rejoice in the Lord. Another text runs: Delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
What are we instructed to do then, and what are we enabled to do? To rejoice in the Lord. But who can rejoice in something he does not see? Am I suggesting that we see the Lord then? No, but we have been promised that we shall see him. Now, as long as we are in the body, we walk by faith, for we are absent from the Lord. We walk by faith, and not by sight. When will it be by sight? Beloved, says John, we are now the sons of God; what we shall be has not yet been revealed, but we know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. When this prophecy is fulfilled, then it will be by sight.
That will be the great joy, the supreme joy, joy in all its fullness. Then we shall no longer drink the milk of hope, but we shall feed on the reality itself. Nevertheless, even now, before that vision comes to us, or before we come to that vision, let us rejoice in the Lord; for it is no small reason for rejoicing to have a hope that will some day be fulfilled.
Therefore, since the hope we now have inspires love, the just man rejoices, Scripture says, in the Lord; but because he does not yet see, it immediately goes on to say, and hopes in him.
Yet already we have the first fruits of the Spirit, and have we not also other reasons for rejoicing? For we are drawing near to the one we love, and not only are we drawing near – we even have some slight feeling and taste of the banquet we shall one day eagerly eat and drink.
But how can we rejoice in the Lord if he is far from us? Pray God he may not be far. If he is, that is your doing. Love, and he will draw near; love, and he will dwell within you. The Lord is at hand; have no anxiety. Are you puzzled to know how it is that he will be with you if you love? God is love.
“What do you mean by love?” you will ask me. It is that which enables us to be loving. What do we love? A good that words cannot describe, a good that is for ever giving, a good that is the Creator of all good. Delight in him from whom you have received everything that delights you. But in that I do not include sin, for sin is the one thing that you do not receive from him. With that one exception, everything you have comes from him.
Uncategorized
via Three Americans among dead in Palestinian attack on Jerusalem synagogue | Fox News.
“Three Americans were among four worshipers killed in a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday by two Palestinians wielding meat cleavers and a gun and shouting “Allahu Akbar” in a brutal attack that prompted a vow from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “respond harshly.”
The American citizens — identified by the State Department as Mosheh Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky and Cary William Levine — were killed along with a Briton when the assailants, identified as cousins, stormed the building and began attacking people. Police said those killed were all immigrants to Israel and held dual citizenship.
Eight others were injured — one critically — before the attackers were killed in a shootout with police. The Times of Israel cited witnesses who said the attackers stormed the synagogue, in the ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great,” and creating a horrific scene of bloody carnage.
“I tried to escape. The man with the knife approached me. There was a chair and table between us … my prayer shawl got caught. I left it there and escaped,” a man who identified himself as Yossi, who was praying at the synagogue at the time of the attack, told Israeli Channel 2 TV. He declined to give his last name.
The attack was the deadliest in Israel’s capital since 2008, when a Palestinian gunman shot eight people in a religious seminary school.
Netanyahu vowed that Israel will “respond harshly” to the attack, which he denounced as a “cruel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers.” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Netanyahu after the assault and denounced it as an “act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence.”
via Three Americans among dead in Palestinian attack on Jerusalem synagogue | Fox News.
Let us pray:
Jesus the Lord of Armies
Let us pray for the whole Church Militant here upon earth.
O Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David, who fightest the good fight, and hast called on all men to join Thee, give Thy courage and strength to all Thy soldiers over the whole earth, who are fighting under the standard of Thy Cross. Give grace to every one in his own place to fight Thy battle well. Be with Thy missionaries in pagan lands, put right words into their mouths, prosper their labours, and sustain them under their sufferings with Thy consolations, and carry them on, even through torment and blood (if it be necessary), to their reward in heaven. Give the grace of wisdom to those in high station, that they may neither yield to fear, nor be seduced by flattery. Make them prudent as serpents, and simple as doves. Give Thy blessing to all preachers and teachers, that they may speak Thy words and persuade their hearers to love Thee. Be with all faithful servants of Thine, whether in low {187} station or in high, who mix in the world; instruct them how to speak and how to act every hour of the day, so as to preserve their own souls from evil and to do good to their companions and associates. Teach us, one and all, to live in thy presence and to see Thee, our Great Leader and Thy Cross—and thus to fight valiantly and to overcome, that at the last we may sit down with Thee in Thy Throne, as Thou also hast overcome and art set down with Thy Father in His Throne. {188}
September 27, 1856 John Henry Newman
{285} IT is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection—short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are sure ones.
I think this is an instruction which may be of great practical use to persons like ourselves. It is easy to have vague ideas what perfection is, which serve well enough to talk about, when we do not intend to aim at it; but as soon as a person really desires and sets about seeking it himself, he is dissatisfied with anything but what is tangible and clear, and constitutes some sort of direction towards the practice of it.
We must bear in mind what is meant by perfection. It does not mean any extraordinary service, anything out of the way, or especially heroic—not all have the opportunity of heroic acts, of sufferings—but it means what the word perfection ordinarily means. By perfect we mean that which has no flaw in it, that which is complete, that which is consistent, that which is sound—we mean the opposite to imperfect. As we know well what imperfection in {286} religious service means, we know by the contrast what is meant by perfection.
He, then, is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly, and we need not go beyond this to seek for perfection. You need not go out of the round of the day.
I insist on this because I think it will simplify our views, and fix our exertions on a definite aim. If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.
Are liberal news outlets begging for a race riot in Ferguson? | Fox News.
Why is so much of liberal cable news begging for a race riot in Ferguson, Missouri?
Riots create chaos and disorder in black communities like Ferguson. They threaten the public safety of black families, drive down real estate prices in black neighborhoods and hurt the trade of black-owned businesses in the area.
We saw this with the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992. During the LA Riots, 50 people were killed, hundreds more injured and millions of dollars of property destroyed in the black community. Let me repeat, black people did not profit from riots.
If something good is to come out of the Ferguson shooting it will come from the ballot box not from a violent clash with police officers.Cities from Washington, D.C. to Detroit and L.A. can tell you that rioting in the 1960s is still hurting them today. Rioting only devastates communities. It even pushed out the black middle class.
Now, it is true that television networks profit from coverage of riots. So do extremist voices, often from out of town; suddenly people making threats and shouting vile things are in demand for interviews because they are elevated to the status of experts on the black experience. They certainly profit from racial chaos and violence and now they are looking to score again.
Stop it.
Those people looking to get on television and the producers looking for ratings will not be around to repair the damage once the riots tear through town.
The people of Ferguson, black and white, have real questions about why an apparently belligerent but unarmed teenager had to be shot six times, killed and his body disgracefully left in the street for hours.
There is legitimate anger at the Ferguson police department’s refusal to release any information for days added to the sense that they had something to cover up. It did not help when they decided to release a tape of the murdered teen stealing from a store even though that apparently had nothing to do with his subsequent death at the hands of a policeman.
Throughout this sad affair the mainstream media’s coverage has been self-involved – pitting reporters against police and celebrating people who came from far outside Ferguson to get their moment of TV attention.
It is the job of the media to report the news and separate the hysteria from the facts.
Now newspapers and broadcast outlets are effectively egging on the agitators and tacitly nudging the protesters towards riots by creating an expectation of riots.As Bill O’Reilly would say, let’s stop the spin and speak plainly.
The protesters and their witting accomplices in the mainstream media are not interested in justice, they are interested in punishment.
The protesters and the media have already judged Officer Darren Wilson to be guilty.
They have already acted as judge, jury and one gets the sense they would like to be executioner as well.
Remember that the officers who beat Rodney King as well as the man who killed Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman? They went on trial but were ultimately exonerated leading to even more pain and anger in the black community.
In my biography of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, “Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary,” I argued that Marshall’s approach to the civil rights movement differed from that of black militants such as the Black Panther Party.
The Panthers were a tiny group compared to NAACP, Dr. King’s SCLC, the Urban League and most black organizations. But they got out-sized coverage from media romantics because they called themselves revolutionaries, advocated violence and paraded around with guns.
Meanwhile, it was Marshall, with support from Dr. King’s Christian appeals and the NAACP’s steady groundwork, who ended legal segregation with civil rights laws, voting rights laws and other legal victories that put the police and the government on the side of enforcing racial equality.
If there is no indictment of Officer Wilson, I sincerely hope people will elect to follow that Marshall model rather than the calls to self-destruction through rioting.
Read more via Are liberal news outlets begging for a race riot in Ferguson? | Fox News.
I was trying to remember a beautiful prayer I used to pray daily. I found that all I remembered was something about the shades lengthening. Google to the rescue! Here it is with another I just discovered and will pass on. The great man and author was John Henry Cardinal Newman.
May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest and peace at the last. Amen.
O my Lord Jesus, low as I am in Your all-holy sight, I am strong in You, strong through Your Immaculate Mother, through Your saints and thus I can do much for the Church, for the world, for all I love. Amen.
Just one more:
The Mission of My Life
God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.
Click here for more.
O God, let me climb
the Lord’s mountain,
That I may be changed,
Charged, and sent.Going up to Jerusalem,
May sinful Man
Grab on to the tassels
Of my garment,
And run with me,
Drawn heavenward
By Your Cross.On this mountain,
This all hallowed mountain,
From which the bones of Adam,
And the faith of Abraham, cry out,
Rescue,save, deliver,
My Redeemer comes.©2011 Joann Nelander
Pope Francis is Coming to the United States – Confirmed for 2015!
November 17, 2014 by Dan Burke
It is with great joy that I announce the confirmation that our Holy Father Pope Francis will be coming to the United States in 2015….you all know the power of prayer. Please join with me in prayer for the protection of the Pope during his visit and that the Holy Spirit will pour out blessings upon the Church in the United States that will lead us to a deep renewal of faith.
Please don’t forget to share this post and the good news with all of your family and friends!
Here are the details posted over at the National Catholic Register:
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday officially announced that he will visit the U.S. in September 2015, including a visit to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and New York City.
“I wish to confirm, if God wills it, that in September of 2015 I will go to Philadelphia for the Eighth World Meeting of Families.” he announced at Vatican City’s Synod Hall Nov. 17 during his remarks at an international colloquium on the complementarity of man and woman.
The Philadelphia World Meeting of Families will take place from Sept. 22-27. Even before the Pope’s announcement, the meeting was expected to draw tens of thousands of people. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia had told a gathering of Catholic bishops last week that a papal visit would likely result in crowds of about 1 million.
A global Catholic event, the world meeting seeks to support and strengthen families. St. John Paul II founded the event in 1994, and it takes place every three years.
Archbishop Chaput had previously hinted that Pope Francis would attend the 2015 meeting, although he cautioned that the visit had not been officially confirmed. In March 2014, a Pennsylvania delegation including Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter visited the Vatican to help encourage the Pope to visit the U.S.
From a letter by Conrad of Marburg, spiritual director of Saint Elizabeth Elizabeth recognized and loved Christ in the poor
From this time onward Elizabeth’s goodness greatly increased. She was a lifelong friend of the poor and gave herself entirely to relieving the hungry. She ordered that one of her castles should be converted into a hospital in which she gathered many of the weak and feeble. She generously gave alms to all who were in need, not only in that place but in all the territories of her husband’s empire. She spent all her own revenue from her husband’s four principalities, and finally she sold her luxurious possessions and rich clothes for the sake of the poor.
Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, Elizabeth went to visit the sick. She personally cared for those who were particularly repulsive; to some she gave food, to others clothing; some she carried on her own shoulders, and performed many other kindly services. Her husband, of happy memory, gladly approved of these charitable works. Finally, when her husband died, she sought the highest perfection; filled with tears, she implored me to let her beg for alms from door to door.
On Good Friday of that year, when the altars had been stripped, she laid her hands on the altar in a chapel in her own town, where she had established the Friars Minor, and before witnesses she voluntarily renounced all worldly display and everything that our Savior in the gospel advises us to abandon. Even then she saw that she could still be distracted by the cares and worldly glory which had surrounded her while her husband was alive. Against my will she followed me to Marburg. Here in the town she built a hospice where she gathered together the weak and the feeble. There she attended the most wretched and contemptible at her own table.
Apart from those active good works, I declare before God that I have seldom seen a more contemplative woman. When she was coming from private prayer, some religious men and women often saw her face shining marvelously and light coming from her eyes like the rays of the sun.
Before her death I heard her confession. When I asked what should be done about her goods and possessions, she replied that anything which seemed to be hers belonged to the poor. She asked me to distribute everything except one worn out dress in which she wished to be buried. When all this had been decided, she received the body of our Lord. Afterward, until vespers, she spoke often of the holiest things she had heard in sermons. Then, she devoutly commended to God all who were sitting near her, and as if falling into a gentle sleep, she died.
Joann Nelander
lionessblog.com
via “Sheikh Google’s” Radical Islam.
“‘Sheikh Google’ is the real threat to young Muslims.” — Hifsa Haroon-Iqbal, British Muslim mother, Daily Telegraph.
These mild legal outcomes indicate that U.S. officials do not appreciate how inflammatory the materials are.
As informed Muslims know, present-day radical Islamists have proven adept at using the internet – far more than have their moderate and Western opponents. “Internet savvy” jihadism appears as evidence of the youthful constituency of the extremists. They have grown up with the internet, video games, and other online diversions. When fanatical ideology takes hold of them, the internet is one of the obvious places for the process to begin.
In an important 2003 article in The Weekly Standard, entitled “The Islamic Terrorism Club,” Stephen Schwartz, wrote about some of the more obnoxious pro-jihad Arabic-language websites then operating from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The jihad-net expanded considerably in the decade that followed.
Even before September 11, 2001, however, many Muslims who opposed the fundamentalists were focusing on Islamist websites in English, as a means to anticipate threats from radicals.
With Britain targeted for recruitment to the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” [IS] and the IS’s brutal campaign in Syria and Iraq, these sites, which remain operating, are still important and accessible to both the Muslim and non-Muslim public. They are exceptionally educational about the aims and methods of Islamist demagogues.
On September 25, the London Daily Telegraph reported on the pervasive influence of radical Islam on the internet. The article quoted Hifsa Haroon-Iqbal, a British Muslim mother, who said, “the internet is the real problem when it comes to young people being radicalised: ‘The biggest issue right now is the internet – it’s Sheikh Google.'” The Telegraph went with the quote in its headline: “Forget radicalisation in mosques – ‘Sheikh Google’ is the real threat to young Muslims.”
(Image source: muslimvillage.com)
A standard source for monitoring jihadist agitation is Islamic Awakening. It has an extensive archive worth studying, and is eclectic in its postings, which are anti-radical as well as radical. On October 18, 2014, for instance, its headings under “Global Affairs” included: “America is One Sick Place,” a thread begun in 2009, and “Kurdish Murtads [Apostates from Islam] Are Going on a Rampage in Turkey,” posted a few days earlier. The latter is an explicit pro-ISIS comment that accuses Kurds of defending themselves against charges of apostasy, or leaving Islam, because their ranks include secularist “leftists.”
Another well of Islamist venom is Sunni Forum. On October 18, 2014, its lead item under “Current Affairs,” dating from July 23, 2006, was a protest in favor of Guantánamo detainees, entitled, “I Have Tried to Kill Myself Twice…” The second, first posted on July 21, 2006, is a petition defending Syed Talha Ahsan, a British-born jihadist author who was extradited from the UK to the U.S. Ahsan was tried by the American authorities and, with another defendant and UK citizen, Babar Ahmed, pled guilty to charges of promoting the Taliban when it protected Al-Qaida, and to assisting other violent groups, via the internet.
read more via “Sheikh Google’s” Radical Islam.
via Immaculate Heart Catholic Radio – Faith, Hope and Love.
Andre Love doesn’t look like your typical Benedictine monk. But for the last six years the former tattoo artist has been a member of the order at Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon, where he is an iconographer and curator of the Abbey’s art collection. The Statesman Journal recently profiled Brother Andre Love and his incredible journey to the monastic life.
Six years ago, Mount Angel Abbey’s serene hilltop campus shook, as leather-clad Bobby Love rolled in on his motorcycle. Love removed his helmet revealing pierced ears and a mop of dreadlocks. With tattoos on his hands, arms and neck, he looked like an extra on “Sons of Anarchy” not a someone attending a retreat for those who might become Catholic monks.
Love knew from a young age that he wanted to devote his life to being an artist. After dropping out of high school and serving in the army, he discovered he could make $100 an hour as a tattoo artist, and developed a reputation as a tattoo artist in New York, New Orleans, Seattle and Austin. Despite having friends and material comfort, Love was still unhappy. He told the Statesman Journal:
“Everything said I should be happy, but I felt very alone and adrift. I looked at myself and realized that I had become a product,” Love said. “I was doing art not as personal expression but for what the kids want, what the kids would shell out the coin for.”
It had become about money, brand and ego. It had become about drugs and booze. He’d left his family and divorced three times.
“I had no clue what love was. I had no clue how to love or how to let other people love me and that’s why I was miserable,” Love said.
He admitted being an addict.
“The addiction was only a symptom of a greater problem … spiritual bankruptcy,” Love said. “I came to the realization that I need God. I needed to be a whole person in the sense that it’s not just about the material or the physical, but there was a whole spiritual dynamic that I had completely ignored.”
Joann Nelander Studio 