Christian Persecution

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Sunday Snippets

I only had two posts this week:
7 Quick Takes
Catholic Pics from Facebook

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Catholic pics from Facebook

Saw these and wanted to share:

H/T to Pater Eddie Dwyer

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7 Quick Takes 28OCT

1. I'm taking my daughter to a birthday party tomorrow at a stable. She'll love riding on the ponies.
2. I need to get better at time management. I keep telling myself that I don't have time to clean my house, but really I don't have time after I'm done watching TV.
3. I'm going to try to get in the habit of reciting the Jesus Prayer: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
4. The South cracks me up. Its 70 something during the day, but you still see people dressed like they're about to freeze to death.
5. 65 days till I go on leave!
6. Aid to the Church in Need is raising money for a seminary prep program in Sudan if you're looking for somewhere to give to charity. More info here.
7. Please adopt a Catholic blogger in prayer. If you want leave a note to say which blog/blogger you have adopted in prayer.

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Vince's story

From We Are the 53%

I can't help but be inspired by this story.

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Catholic Planking

h/t to Alive and Young

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Phillipians Post from Facebook

I've had this post stuck in my head since I saw it on Saturday. For some reason every time I read this post I think of John 3:30; "He must increase and I must decrease."


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You know you're a Dad when...

you take off you're shoe and find a Snow White sticker stuck to the bottom of your sock.

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Saints and Scripture Ora et Labora

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve." --Colossians 3:23,24

Ora et Labora in today's world.

St Benedict in the rule he wrote for his monks over 1,000 years ago, (It is still used by religious orders to this day) emphasize "ora et labora"; in English "prayer and work". He understood that work can be prayer and he exhorted his monks, as do many abbots today, to make their work into prayer. Its often joked amongst Benedictines and Trappists that the motto of St Benedict is "Ora et labora and some mora labora". The daily prayers of the monks are even described as "opus Dei" or the work of God.
Talents were originally a coin. We have taken that word and used it as a metaphor for those abilities and other blessings from the Lord. Clearly from the Parable of the Talents and the passage above we are to invest these talents in such a way to glorify the Lord God.

Please stop in to the host of Saints and Scripture, The Kennedy Adventure
h/t to Andrew Cusack for the photo

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7 Quick Takes 07OCT2011

1. Today is the start of the Greek Festival downtown. The local Greek Orthodox church, Most Holy Trinity, is cooking Greek food, and displaying Greek culture. It'll be a lot of fun and I'm meeting some friends there today to enjoy it with them.
2. I am waiting now to find out what I have to do to begin the process to change my rite of ascription to Melkite Catholic.
3.Today is the first day of my four day weekend. God bless the Army!
4. I personally enjoy heavy metal. After all, God is the one who blessed us with rhythm and creativity to come up with the different forms of music. Granted, much of heavy metal has distasteful and often blasphemous lyrics, but I've really been getting into Cradle Catholic. He has great heavy metal riffs with Latin prayers as the lyrics.
5. The Pope was honored by an Orthodox University the other day.
6. What would the American Catholic have left to post on if you took away the Civil War and American Politics?
7. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, both now and always, and unto the ages of ages.

Please visit Jen's 7 Quick Takes for this week.

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Not Twitter

h/t to Stained Glass Buffalo
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Explanation of Incense

I saw this video on OrthoCath. There is a CC Button at the bottom left. Click that for subtitles, unless you know American Sign Language.

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Saints and Scripture St Raphael the Archangel

"For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord." --Tobit 12:15

St Raphael is one of the seven archangels. The others we have from the Canon of Scripture are Sts Michael and Gabriel. Apocryphal sources, to include Enoch which some Christians consider part of the Canon, name the others as Uriel, Saltiel, Jeadriel and Barachiel.
Notice how each of these names ends with El. This is one of the Biblical names of God. The inclusion of a deity in a proper name is called theophory. Raphael means God is healing or Healing one of God.
If you are familiar with the book of Tobit, you know that Raphael came to release Tobits future wife from the demon Asmodeus and heal Tobias, Tobit's father, of his blindness.

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Sunday Snippets 25SEP

I look back on this week and I had only three posts.
In Saw This on Facebook, I share a joke that I read on Facebook and wanted to share with everyone.
I participated in Friday's 7 Quick Takes.
I had some ramblings in Nave about church architecture and a Biblical symbol of the Church.



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Saw this on Facebook

Our battalion chaplain had this on his Facebook page. He got it from someone, who got from someone. Its too funny not to pass along.

Too funny not to post! A mother invites her son, Anthony, for dinner. He lives with a female roommate, Tina. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help but notice how pretty Anthony's roommate is. Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Anthony and his roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Anthony volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Tina and I are just roommates.'' About a week later, Tina came to Anthony saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don't suppose she took it, do you?" "Well, I doubt it, but I'll email her, just to be sure. " So he sat down and wrote an email: Dear Mama, I'm not saying that you "did" take the sugar bowl from my house; I'm not saying that you "did not" take it. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love, Anthony Several days later, Anthony received a response email from his Mama which read: Dear son, I'm not saying that you "do" sleep with Tina, and I'm not saying that you "do not" sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now. Love, Mama. ------ Moral: Never lie to your Mama


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7 Quick Takes 23SEP

1. I have reached the decision, I am definitely going to switch from Latin Catholic to Melkite Catholic. I've been going to our local Melkite parish for over a year and I've fallen in love with the Byzantine Liturgy and spirituality.
2. As of Wednesday, I am a First Degree Knight. I'd been meaning to join the Knights of Columbus for quite a while and I finally did.
3. Facebook keeps changing up their format and yet they have still yet to add a dislike button. How hard is it to write the script for it? You could just take the Like script and change it to say Dislike.
4. Monday off of work!!!!
5. I bought a jacket for my daughter last weekend and her mom said she has not wanted to take it off ever since. Dad knows what Princess likes.
6. Is it bad that I'm almost 30 and still LOVE to splash in mud puddles?
7. The last shall be first...

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Nave

I found out last night that nave means ship. The nave is the main part of a cruciform (in the shape of a cross) church. The other part of a cruciform church is the transept.
The nave is where the body would go on a cross and the transept is where the arms would have been placed.
I find it interesting that nave means ship, because my favorite Biblical prefiguring of the Church is Peter's barque. I don't know why its my favorite but it has always fascinated me and it would seem that through architecture we are reinforcing the boat as an image of the Church. Jesus at the head of the boat, in the Eucharist with the successors to the apostles.

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Saints and Scripture Forgiveness

If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
Matthew 6:14, 15
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus reminds us that when we pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" that we get from the Father what we put into it. I don't have anything to add to the plain language of this passage.
The saints who come to mind for me when I think of forgiveness are St Peter and St Bakhita.
St Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed and begged forgiveness from the Lord.
St Josephine Bakhita was originally from Sudan. As a little girl, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. She had several masters, including one who used scarification to mark her as his property. Eventually one of her masters took her to Italy.
While in Italy she took her master's children to catechism classes. She heard the Gospel, believed and was baptized. However, when her master tried to take her back to Italy the Canossian Sisters took the case to court and she was freed.
She became a Canossian Sister and forgave the many people who had treated her as property and hurt her in so many ways. She realized that her suffering and their evil brought her to Italy where she found out about Jesus and became a Christian.
Bakhita means "fortunate one".


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Sunday Snippets 10SEP

Its been a relatively busy week of blogging for me. I didn't post as much as I did in the past but more than I have in quite a while.
In honor of the Nativity of the Theotokos on 08SEP I had a post on the Hail Mary prayer and another post with poems in honor of Mary.
Saturday I have a post about Atheist double standards.

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Atheist Double Standards

Found on Facebook:

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