Monday, April 30, 2012

Wisdom from Father Jose 24

"Don't slap the door at Jesus! Allow him to come in and clean your house, your heart." -- Fr Jose
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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Sunday Snippets 28APR2012

Its time again for Sunday Snippets!
Monday I had Wisdom from Father Jose 23. Two more and the series will be complete.
Tuesday was a link to the Wallace-Sanger interview and 6 Year Blogiversary.
Thursday I posted an icon for Theotokos Thursday.
Friday I posted 7 Quick Takes and Saint Quiz XVI.
Today, was a funny pope pic and an example of strange things you say as a parent.

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Not sure which Pope this is, but still hilarious




image source

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Children make you say the weirdest things

Like: "Get your foot out of the book!"

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Friday, April 27, 2012

Saint Quiz XVI

Who can figure it out?

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7 Quick Takes 27APR12

You can check out the other Quick Takes for this week at Conversion Diary
  1.  This week marks six years that I've been blogging on 50 Days After. So many things have happened in these six years for me personally. I was still at Mount Angel when I began blogging. Since then, I left there, went into the Army, married, had a daughter, went to Iraq, divorced, left the Army, and so much more. Who knows what will happen in the next six years? Hopefully they will be better than the last six.
  2. Its hard to believe, but I've been a homeowner for a whole year. I bought foreclosed house and fixed a number of things, but there's still so much more to go. Every day I seem to find something new that needs fixing or replacing.
  3. Still haven't yet had anyone solve Saint Quiz XV. Hint: Think of a Christian martyr killed by lions.
  4. I thought about something the other day. Miriam was a prophetess who sang a song after the Red Sea consumed the Egyptians. Mary sang the Magnificat after the Annunciation. It seems like with the names and the songs there should be some connection but that's as far as I got.
  5. A silly song that I really enjoy:
  6. Yesterday I found a blog that I forgot I had set up. Apparently I created it in 2004 and only posted once. I changed the name from My Random Thoughts to Life in Exile and now it has two posts. I'm thinking maybe I'll make it into a photo blog or something else artsy.
  7. Blessed be Jesus, true God and true Man!
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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

6 Year Blog Birthday

To commemorate my six years of ramblings, here are six  random posts (and one Easter Egg) in no particular order:
Pope Pius XI Spaghetti Western Star: I found a post on Fr Z's blog about the good Pope packing a revolver and speculated on titles for possible Spaghetti Westerns starring him.
Samson and the Destruction of the Temple was a brief post on whether Samson destroying the temple was suicide.
David and Popes is an apologetic post on corrupt Popes.
100 places on my bucket list
My Christmas in Iraq poem

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The Wallace-Sanger Interview

A 1957 interview on birth control with Margaret Sanger:
The Mike Wallace and Margaret Sanger Interview

I like the way he asks her about her own quotes and she's obviously uneasy answering.

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Monday, April 23, 2012

Wisdom from Father Jose 23

You are the new John the Baptist called to proclaim repentace to a world deserted of values! -- Fr. Jose
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Friday, April 20, 2012

Magnificat That's what she said

h/t to Restless Pilgrim
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Return of Christianity to Kosovo

Islam and Christianity pointed out an article from The Economist about the growing numbers of Kosovars converting to Protestant and Catholic Christianity, but not the Eastern Orthodox Church.
From the article:

...[M]any of them come from a crypto-Christian background. Their forefathers may have converted to Islam under Ottoman rule, but behind closed doors they kept their old Catholic practices. Jahja Drancolli, a historian, adds that “religion has always been secondary” to being Albanian. Converts, he says, “want to return to the old religion they believe they had” and to show that they are “part of the Euro-American trend.” For every convert, anecdotal evidence suggests more go to church or are interested in Christianity.
The Catholic church is not the only one active in Kosovo. Since 1985, says Artur Krasniqi, a Protestant pastor, as many as 15,000 Kosovar Albanians have converted to Protestantism: 2,000 regularly attend church...
What about Orthodoxy? Close by Pastor Artur’s office is the empty hulk of the unfinished, abandoned Serbian Orthodox cathedral in Pristina. Kosovo’s Serbs, who are Orthodox, make up the largest Christian group in Kosovo. They no longer live in the capital but in the north or in scattered enclaves and villages. Since the 1999 war, dozens of their churches have been destroyed. Worse, the Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo is riven by a political split that has seen monks brawling and fighting. In Belgrade the 94-year-old Serbian Orthodox patriarch, Pavle, has long been gravely ill and a vicious war of succession is being waged. For now, other forms of Christianity seem more peaceable.

I also suspect that Orthodoxy has too close of an association with Serbia which still claims Kosovo as its sovereign territory. Its unfortunate, but far too many people's faith is wrapped up in their politics.

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The Enemy's Ambush

'He who is ignorant of the enemy's ambush is easily slain; and he who does not know the causes of the passions is soon brought low.'
St. Mark the Ascetic
other Saint Quotes
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Thought provoking quote from Fr. Longenecker

Saying that Catholic priests should be allowed to get married in order to solve the pedophile problem is about as thoughtful as saying that a psychopathic serial killer could have been cured by getting a hunting license.

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7 Quick Takes 4/20/12

  1. Set up a new tab for browsing through the saint quizzes. I posted XV this week and no one's gotten it yet.
  2. One month and roughly 50 applications and resumes later, still unemployed. Thank God for my old commander who drilled into me the importance of an emergency fund.
  3. Random trivia: Today is the day that stoners throughout the country look forward to. Its also Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine shootings.
  4. I'm refusing this year to turn on my AC until it reaches at least 95. I'm determined to pinch those pennies, but there have been a few days where the temperature got close to 90 and I almost gave in. I'm glad for some cloudy whether yesterday and today.
  5. With all my unexpected spare time of late, I checked out a book from the library and I've been trying to teach myself Biblical Greek. I've got the alphabet down, but I'm having trouble slogging through the conjugations and such.
  6. I've also been writing short stories and self-publishing them on the Amazon Kindle store, because its free, I like being a "published" author and maybe someone might actually buy them.  (Yes, that was a shameless plug.)
  7. Glory to Jesus Christ, True God and True Man.
Please check out the other Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Credible Hulk

I saw this on Facebook, no idea where it originally came from, but its too funny not to share.

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Saint Quiz XV


Who can guess this early Church Father?

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Monday, April 16, 2012


"How shall I make you understand the love that my
Father lavished on his little Queen!
Those were specially happy days for me when I went fishing with my
dear "King," as I used to call him."
 
From Story of a Soul by St Therese de Lisieux 

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Wisdom from Father Jose 22

The Lord said "The harvest is abundant and the laborers few." With fewer laborers, all of us have more work to do. All for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. -- Father Jose
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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Saints and Scripture Thomas' Declaration of Faith

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and says to them, "Peace be to you." And when He had so said, He showed to them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be to you: as my Father has sent Me, even so send I you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and says to them, Receive you the Holy Ghost: "Whose soever sins you remit, they are remitted to them; and whose soever sins you retain, they are retained." But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be to you. Then says He to Thomas, "Reach hither your finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and My God."
John 20:19-28

 This is one of my favorite stories of the Apostles and Thomas is tied with Peter for my favorite Apostle. There's so much to this story, for instance its mentioned that he is called Didymus which means "twin". Who's his twin?! (More importantly does he have an evil twin like some kind of Ancient Soap Opera plot device?) Why does Thomas get the bad rap as the disbeliever? The others didn't believe until Jesus was in front of them pointing out His wounds. Thomas and Peter are the only two Apostles I know of that plainly declared Jesus to be God. Also, the distinction is shown here that Thomas calls Him "My Lord and My God." He not only acknowledges Jesus as God, but also as the one he declares loyalty (My Lord). How many times have we and others we know acknowledged Jesus as God, but not as Lord? Saint Theophylact had this to say:

He who had been before unbelieving, after touching the body showed himself the best divine; for he asserted the twofold nature and one Person of Christ; by saying, My Lord, the human nature by saying, My God, the divine, and by joining them both, confessed that one and the same Person was Lord and God.

When Deacon Kent gave his sermon this morning, he pointed out similarities between Jesus and Adam. Adam had his rib removed to create Eve and thus all of mankind by extension. When Jesus had his side opened water and blood flowed out signifying Baptism and Eucharist. As the New Adam, Jesus makes us a new creation through the New Covenant entered into by Baptism and renewed in the Eucharist.
Jesus said also said in this story, "Peace be to you: as My Father sent Me, so I send you." Thomas arrived in India about 55 AD and evangelized there. The communities established there became the Syro-Malabar,  Syro-Malankara Churches and later groups from these Churches reunited with the Catholic Church.


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Sunday Snippets 15APR2012

Christ is risen!
I hope everyone is having a blessed Easter season.
On Monday there was more Wisdom from Father Jose and on Tuesday it was revealed which Springfield the Simpsons is set in. Thursday was a meme on Christian persecution. I joined in the Seven Quick Takes on Friday and Saturday I had a short post about the annual miracle of the Holy Fire.

Please check out the other Sunday Snippets at This That and the Other Thing.

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Saturday, April 14, 2012

Holy Fire

The miracle of the Holy Fire has occurred again this year. Pilgrims have begun the spreading of the fire from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to the rest of the world. Torches lit by the Holy Fire are actually flown on chartered planes to Eastern Europe and transported to Israeli border checkpoints so it can be taken to Jordan and Syria. The miracle occurs every year on the day the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Easter.

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Friday, April 13, 2012

Seven Quick Takes Pope stuff

I've always just thrown stuff in here to fill the seven, so this week I'm trying a theme. I already don't like it, but its done. Back to chaos and disorder next week.

1. I found a game where the object is to name (for me after the few 5 or 6 I guessed) all 40 countries that John Paul II visited more than once.
2. Random trivia on Papal Travels: Pope Paul VI was the only Pope to visit Iran.
3. I looked around on the site from #1 and found a game where you guess the most common papal names.
4. If you're looking for more of a challenge you can try to guess all the names used by Popes. Not each number, just the 80 different names before those numbers.
5. Pope Constantine traveled to Constantinople. He's also the only one of the Byzantine Popes who chose a distinctively Greek name.
6. A lot of people don't realize that the Popes at one time were the rulers of the Papal States across central Italy.
7. When Italy was united under Garibaldi, the Popes found themselves without any temporal power until Mussolini granted sovereignty over Vatican City to the Pope.

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Thursday, April 12, 2012

as though in prison with them


Hebrews 13:3 full text: "Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body."

image source

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Which Springfield?

I saw an article online today that revealed the Springfield on the Simpsons is Springfield, Oregon. He revealed in a Smithsonian article.
From the Smithsonian article:
OK, why do the Simpsons live in a town called Springfield? Isn’t that a little generic?
Springfield was named after Springfield, Oregon. The only reason is that when I was a kid, the TV show “Father Knows Best” took place in the town of Springfield, and I was thrilled because I imagined that it was the town next to Portland, my hometown. When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name. I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, “This will be cool; everyone will think it’s their Springfield.” And they do.
You’ve never said it was named after Springfield, Oregon, before, have you?
I don’t want to ruin it for people, you know? Whenever people say it’s Springfield, Ohio, or Springfield, Massachusetts, or Springfield, wherever, I always go, “Yup, that’s right.”

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Monday, April 09, 2012

Wisdom from Father Jose 21

Happy feast day everyone striving to live out their sainthood. -- Father Jose (Quoted on All Saints Day)
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Sunday, April 08, 2012

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Pope going to Lebanon

"The pope will come to support Christians so that they are united," said Gregory III Laham, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, adding that the visit would take place September 14-16, the I.Media religious news agency reported... read more
UPDATE: Here is an interview with the Maronite Patriarch by Vatican Radio on the upcoming visit to Lebanon
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Both Anglican Ordinariates welcoming fellow Anglicans

The Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter:
The rector and members of St.Michael the Archangel Anglican parish in Philadelphia were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church on April 2, becoming the first Anglican community in Pennsylvania to enter a new U.S. ordinariate for Anglican groups and clergy seeking to become Catholic. David Ousley, the rector, is preparing to be ordained a Catholic priest later this year.Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, the head of the ordinariate nationally, will celebrate Mass and preach for the new Catholic community on Holy Thursday, April 5, 6 p.m. at Holy Cross Church, 140 E. Mount Airy Avenue in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.
The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:
This year, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is expecting around 200 lay people and 20 clergy to come into full communion from the Anglican world one year after 60 Anglican clergy and about 1,000 lay people first joined the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham during Holy Week in 2011.
Ut unum sint!

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Friday, April 06, 2012

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Together Forever in the Liturgy

I saw this on FB, I love the way it succinctly phrases the great wonder of the Liturgy and it fit in with my Palm Sunday post so well that I had to post it and link.

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Monday, April 02, 2012

Wisdom from Father Jose 20

A priest never takes vacation from his vocation... still celebrating mass with the people. -- Father Jose
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Sunday, April 01, 2012

Saints and Scripture Palm Sunday '12

And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, “Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.” And this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.”
Matthew 21:9

My favorite part of the Palm Sunday story is "Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord". In the East and in the West this said, chanted or sung with every Divine Liturgy and Mass. Christ might not be literally riding down the aisle, but certainly He is about to become physically manifest to us in the Eucharist. He is coming to His New Jerusalem, just the same as He came to Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. Just as we are present at Calvary for His one Sacrifice every time we celebrate the Eucharist, so too do we mystically cheer His arrival just as the Jews of ancient times did.
St Jerome had this to say: For it signifies that the coming of Christ is the salvation of the world, whence it follows, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Which same thing the Savior in the Gospel confirms, “I am come in my Father’s name.”
St Hilary of Poitier said:  "The words of their song of praise, express His power of redemption; in calling Him the Son of David, they acknowledge His hereditary title to the kingdom."

Check out the other Saints and Scripture entries here.
UPDATE: Check out a great post here about the importance of the donkey in Palm Sunday.
Have a blessed Holy Week!


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