tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59994956859076565742024-03-13T10:50:33.007-07:00terry fenwick - Saint In TrainingTerry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.comBlogger294125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-76439735179108366232019-02-21T08:36:00.001-08:002019-02-21T08:36:38.270-08:00terryfenwick@mac.comTerry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-44613704851487585802018-07-06T11:59:00.001-07:002018-07-06T11:59:40.585-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-13264928792934316672016-04-24T11:25:00.001-07:002018-02-28T09:16:18.815-08:00"Grief . . . Never Ends . . . <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Grief . . . Never ends . . . But it changes.</div>
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It is a passage, not a place to stay. </div>
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Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith . . .</div>
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It is the price of LOVE. </div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-49117760108271454892016-03-30T13:36:00.001-07:002016-03-30T13:36:43.251-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-45133571915520205482016-03-27T09:52:00.002-07:002016-03-27T09:52:27.347-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-2929757559204147582015-11-14T12:50:00.005-08:002016-06-12T11:52:40.824-07:00DARE TO LOVE - BENEDICT XVI <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="color: #444444;"><i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My dear young friends, I want to invite you to “dare to love.” </span></i></span></i></h2>
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Do not desire anything less for your life than a love that is strong </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and beautiful and that is capable of making the whole of your </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">existence a joyful undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift </span></span></i><i><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">to God and your brothers and sisters, in imitation of the One</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">who vanquished hatred and death forever through love.</span></span></i></h2>
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<i><span style="color: #444444;">Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the </span></i><span style="font-family: "\22 georgia\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"><br /></span><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">between men and women, between rich and poor, between </span></span></i><i><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">cultures and civilizations.</span></span></i></h2>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><i><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Benedict XVI, Message for the 22nd World Youth Day, January 2007</span></span></i></h2>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-72376745126957917332015-08-09T12:23:00.000-07:002015-08-09T12:31:48.958-07:00Facebook Original Bio <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I am a Catholic. I am a Wife, Mother and Grandmother. (I have had two great husbands who both are in heaven - and seemingly will not get them to send for me!) but have been married to great men. People always loved my husbands and took me in along with them as I rode their coattails. They both really loved me - cared for me. We had and raised seven sons - very blessed with them. None of them have been divorced - they have marriage values - I really love them all. They all are married to strong women. Between them? They have given us 15 Grandchildren - and we know why they are called Grand. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0b5394; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">When I was in my late 60s I discovered I was really a good teacher. Just about the time I decided to resign from CBS - as a Bible Study Teaching Director, I began to know I was really a teacher!!! When you are older you begin to know these things and don't mind saying them - you know it is not an ego thing - because really good gifts come from GOD and you can be happy you have them without feeling you are boasting. I am a great encourager, but I am tough dealing with people who need to be dealt with!!!!! I write and am writing two books - I always said I was not a writer - I could write questions because I know answers, but not a writer. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0b5394; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Recently I have read some of my things and they made me cry - they were so great. I hardly could believe I wrote them - so I am in a new discovery about who I am and what I do with my life - before I go. Did I say I am 76 and will be 77 this year? Tom, my husband, left at 79 (2006) almost 3 full years ago. You would have loved him. You would like our family. They are all growing up - if they take (only) the best from their mother and father - they will be terrific. I thank you for reading all this stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Here is our story: </span><a href="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fterryfenwick.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F03%2Fcoming-home-terry-and-tom-hand-in-hand.html&h=5AQGMGebf&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://terryfenwick.blogspot.com/2011/03/coming-home-terry-and-tom-hand-in-hand.html</a></span><br />
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<span class="_c24 _50f4" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br />I am in a personal relationship with my Lord Jesus<br />Christ, and it is not complicated! Terry Fenwick<br /><br />"During the course of the day, recollect as often as you can that you stand in the presence of God. Consider what He does and what you are doing. You will find His eyes turned towards you and perpetually fixed on you with an incomparable love."~ St. Francis de Sales<br /><br />"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome<br /><br />"LORD, if you want it, I want it, too!"<br /><br />"To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant." Blessed John Henry Newman. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1878)<br /><br />"Rome has spoken, the matter is closed." St Augustine!<br /><br />We are an Easter people and 'Hallelujah!' is our song." Pope John Paul II<br /><br />"Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." St. John Henry Newman<br /><br />"The apostles and their successors are God's vicars in governing the Church which is built on faith and the sacraments of faith. Wherefore, just as they may not institute another Church, so neither may they deliver another faith, nor institute other sacraments."<br />--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 64, ad. 3<br /><br />I write a little thing called LESS IS MORE so I have so many quotations -one QUOTE I use as a guideline for a quotation is: The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone? Ecclesiastes 6:11<br /><br />"Winning isn't everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Barry Goldwater<br /><br />About Facebook: "I love quaint villages like Montecito Village, Half Moon Bay Village, AOL Village, now Face Book Village. Facebook Village is a warm and fun place to run the streets, meet friends and talk with people. I am 77+" Terry Fenwick<br /><br />"There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us." Pope John Paul the "Great"<br /><br />My favorite: "There are only a handful of Americans who hate the Catholic Church, though there are millions who hate what they think the Church is." Bishop Fulton Sheen<br /><br />Blessed Mary at Cana: "Do whatever he tells you."<br /><br />The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive!<br /><br />I thank my wonderful FB friend, Ann Flook for this quote. Please take it and save it with your own. It is priceless.<br /><br />"You must give yourself to studying the teaching and example of Jesus, because you cannot imitate what you do not know." -Blessed Basil Moreau<br /><br />“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw</span></span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-29256110295900560212015-07-19T09:31:00.004-07:002018-02-27T11:13:26.894-08:00KNOW YOUR CATECHISM or don't tie the cat's leg to the bedpost . . .<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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KNOW YOUR CATECHISM </div>
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I love this story. I told it with a lecture on Daniel and how he prayed at the window every day. This story is so true about how things happen. People think this is what Catholics do, because they don't know the reasons we do things!! That is one good reason we need to be able to tell them "why" we do the many things we do . . . but you will enjoy the story. </div>
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Imitating a Holy Man</div>
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A very poor holy man lived in a remote part of China. Every day before his time of meditation in order to show his devotion, he put a dish of butter up on the window sill as an offering to God, since food was so scarce. One day his cat came in and ate the butter. To remedy this, he began tying the cat to the bedpost each day before the quiet time. This man was so revered for his piety that others joined him as disciples and worshipped as he did. Generations later, long after the holy man was dead, his followers placed an offering of butter on the window sill during their time of prayer and meditation. Furthermore, each one bought a cat and tied it to the bedpost.<br />
Source Unknown </div>
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Moral here is KNOW YOUR CATECHISM!!!</div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-90191999219636941102015-05-24T15:58:00.001-07:002015-05-24T15:58:27.307-07:00THE MEANING OF THE ASCENSION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What is the meaning of Christ's "ascension into heaven"?</div>
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Heaven is not a place beyond the stars, but something much greater, something that requires far more audacity to assert: Heaven means that man now has a place in God. The basis for this assertion is the interpenetration of humanity and divinity in the crucified and exalted man Jesus. Christ, the man who is in God and eternally one with God, is at the same time God's abiding openness to all human beings.</div>
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Thus Jesus himself is what we call "heaven"; heaven is not a place but a person, the person of him in whom God and man are forever and inseparably one. And we go to heaven and enter into heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him. In this sense, "ascension into heaven" can be something that takes place in our everyday lives…</div>
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For the disciples, the "ascension" was not what we usually misinterpret it as being: the temporary absence of Christ from the world. It meant rather his new, definitive, and irrevocable presence by participation in God's royal power... God has a place for man!… In God there is a place for us!…"Be consoled, flesh and blood, for in Christ you have taken possession of heaven and of God's kingdom!" (Tertullian).</div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-70886018207213060622015-03-24T12:59:00.000-07:002015-03-24T13:08:58.671-07:00MARY SINGS THE PRAISES OF GOD’S MERCY <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial,Tahoma;">MARY SINGS THE MAGNIFICAT</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"> Pope John Paul II</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><br />In the ‘Magnificat’, the Blessed Virgin proclaims the greatness of God who called her, his humble handmaid, to be the Mother of his Incarnate Son</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i></i><i>At the General Audience of Wednesday, 6 November, the Holy Father returned to his catechesis on the Virgin Mary with a reflection on her song known as the </i>Magnificat.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"<i>With her wise reading of history, Mary leads us to discover the criteria of God's mysterious action. Overturning the judgements of the world, he comes to the aid of the poor and lowly", the Pope said, pointing out that it is humility of heart which the Lord finds especially attractive. Here is a translation of the Holy Father's catechesis, which was the 35th in the series on the Blessed Virgin and was given in Italian.</i></span></span><br />
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<i></i>1. Inspired by the Old Testament tradition, with the song of the <i>Magnificat </i>Mary celebrates the marvels God worked in her. This song is the Virgin's response to the mystery of the Annunciation: the angel had invited her to rejoice and Mary now expresses the exultation of her spirit in God her Saviour. Her joy flows from the personal experience of God's looking with kindness upon her, a poor creature with no historical influence.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The word <i>Magnificat</i>,<i> </i>the Latin version of a Greek word with the same meaning, celebrates the greatness of God, who reveals his omnipotence through the angel's message, surpassing the expectations and hopes of the people of the Covenant, and even the noblest aspirations of the human soul.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>He who is mighty has done great things for me</b>In the presence of the powerful and merciful Lord, Mary expresses her own sense of lowliness: "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden" (Lk 1:47-48). The Greek word "tapeínosis" is probably borrowed from the song of Hannah, Samuel's mother. It calls attention to the "humiliation" and "misery" of a barren woman (cf. 1 Sam 1: 11), who confides her pain to the Lord. With a similar expression, Mary makes known her situation of poverty and her awareness of being little before God, who by a free decision looked upon her, a humble girl from Nazareth and called her to become the Mother of the Messiah.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">2. The words "henceforth all generations will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48) arise from the fact that Elizabeth was the first to proclaim Mary "blessed" (Lk 1:45). Not without daring, the song predicts that this same proclamation will be extended and increased with relentless momentum, At the same time, it testifies to the special veneration for the Mother of Jesus which has been present in the Christian community from the very first century. The <i>Magnificat </i>is<i> </i>the first fruit of the various forms of devotion, passed on from one generation to the next, in which the Church has expressed her love for the Virgin of Nazareth.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">3. "For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name, And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation" (Lk 1:49-50).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">What are the "great things" that the Almighty accomplished in Mary? The expression recurs in the Old Testament to indicate the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt or Babylon. In the <i>Magnificat</i>,<i> </i>it refers to the mysterious event of Jesus' virginal conception, which occurred in Nazareth after the angel's announcement.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">In the <i>Magnificat</i>,<i> </i>a truly theological song because it reveals the experience Mary had of God's looking upon her, God is not only the <i>Almighty </i>to whom nothing is impossible, as Gabriel had declared (cf. Lk 1:37), but also the <i>Merciful</i>, capable of tenderness and fidelity towards every human being.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">4. "He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away" (Lk 1: 51-53).</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">With her wise reading of history, Mary leads us to discover the criteria of God's mysterious action. Overturning the judgements of the world, he comes to the aid of the poor and lowly, to the detriment of the rich and powerful, and in a surprising way he fills with good things the humble who entrust their lives to him (cf. <i>Redemptoris Mater</i>, n. 37).</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">While these words of the song show us Mary as a concrete and sublime model, they give us to understand that it is especially humility of heart which attracts God's kindness.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>God fulfils his promises in Mary with abundant generosity<br />
</b>5. Lastly, the song exalts the fulfilment of God's promises and his fidelity to the chosen people: "He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever" (Lk 1:54-55).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Filled with divine gifts, Mary does not limit her vision to her own personal case, but realizes how these gifts show forth God's mercy towards all his people. In her, God fulfils his promises with a superabundance of fidelity and generosity.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Inspired by the Old Testament and by the spirituality of the daughter of Zion, the <i>Magnificat </i>surpasses the prophetic texts on which it is based, revealing in her who is "full of grace" the beginning of a divine intervention which far exceeds Israel's messianic hopes: the holy mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.</span></span><br />
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-64910323579685295292014-11-23T10:15:00.000-08:002015-03-24T13:14:03.935-07:00Joseph and Blessed Mary <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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When Were Joseph and Mary Married?</span></h1>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">When the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary and declared unto her that she was called to be the Mother of God, as we see recorded in Luke 1, her response would become the cause of the spilling of a whole lot of ink over the centuries: “How shall this happen, since I know not man?” (v. 34, Douay Rheims, Confraternity Edition).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">For Catholics this is an indication of Mary’s vow of perpetual virginity. It’s really quite simple. If Mary and Joseph were just an ordinary couple embarking on a normal married life together, there would be no reason to ask the question. Mary would have known very well how it could be that the angel was saying she would have a baby. As St. Augustine said it:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Had she intended to know man, she would not have been amazed. Her amazement is a sign of the vow (Sermon 225, 2).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">But Protestants do not see it as quite so simple. Reformed Apologist James White gives us an example of the most common objection to our “Catholic” view of this text:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Nothing about a vow is mentioned in Scripture. Mary’s response to the angel was based upon the fact that it was obvious that the angel was speaking about an immediate conception, and since Mary was at that time only engaged to Joseph, but not married, <em>at that time </em>she could not possibly conceive in a natural manner, since she did not “know a man” (<em>Mary—Another Redeemer</em>? p. 31.).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Among the errors in just these two sentences (I counted four), there are two that stand out for our purpose here.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #0b5394;">Error #1: Mr. White claims Mary was <em>engaged </em>to St. Joseph<em>. </em></span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">There was no such thing as <em>engagement </em>(as it is understood in modern Western culture) in ancient Israel. The text says Mary was “betrothed” or “espoused” (Gr.—<em>emnesteumene</em>), not engaged. <em>Betrothal</em>, in ancient Israel, would be akin to the ratification of a marriage (when a couple exchanges vows in the presence of an official witness of the Church) in Catholic theology. That ratified marriage is then consummated—in the normal course—on the couple’s wedding night. So when Luke 1:27 says Mary was <em>betrothed</em>, it means they were <em>already married</em> at the time of the annunciation. If this were an ordinary marriage, St. Joseph would then have had a husband’s right to the marriage bed—the consummation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">This simple truth proves devastating to Mr. White’s (and the Protestant's) argument. If Joseph and Mary were married—and they were—and they were planning the normal course, Mary would have known full and well how she could and would have a baby. As St. Augustine said, the question reveals the fact that this was not just your average, ordinary marriage. They were not planning to consummate their union.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #0b5394;">Betrothed = Married?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">For those who are not convinced “betrothed” equals “married” for Mary and Joseph; fortunately, the Bible makes this quite clear. If we move forward in time from the “annunciation” of Luke 1 to Matthew 1 and St. Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy, we find Matthew 1:18 clearly stating Mary and Joseph were still “betrothed.” Yet, when Joseph found out Mary was “with child,” he determined he would “send her away privately” (vs. 19). The Greek verb translated in the RSVCE <em>to send away</em> is <em>apolusai</em>, which means <em>divorce</em>. Why would Joseph have to divorce Mary if they were only engaged? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Further, the angel then tells Joseph:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit . . . When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife (vss. 20-24).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Notice, Joseph took Mary “his wife,” indicating both St. Matthew and an archangel considered this couple married even though they were said to be “<em>betrothed</em>.” “Betrothed” is obviously much more than “engaged.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Moreover, months later we find Joseph and Mary travelling together to Bethlehem to be enrolled as a family according to the decree of Caesar Augustus, just before Jesus would be born. They were obviously married; yet, even then, they were still said to be “betrothed” (see Luke 2:5).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">So let's recap what have we have uncovered. First, Joseph had already taken his espoused “wife” into his home and was caring for her. Second, Scripture reveals him to be her legal husband and to have travelled with Mary to be enrolled with her as a lawfully wedded couple and family. Third, she was called St. Joseph’s “wife” by the angel of the Lord… and yet, they were still referred to as <em>betrothed</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Referring to Mary and Joseph as “engaged” in the face of all of this evidence would be like calling a modern couple at their wedding reception “engaged” because they have yet to consummate their marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Once the fact that Mary and Joseph were already married <em>at the time of the annunciation </em>is understood, Mary’s “How shall this happen…” comes more into focus. Think about it: If you were a woman who had just been married (your marriage was “ratified,” but not consummated) and someone at your reception said—or “prophesied”—that you were going to have a baby—that would not really be all that much of a surprise. That is the normal course of events. You marry, consummate the union, and babies come along. You certainly would <em>not </em>ask the question, “Gee, how is this going to happen?” It is in this context of Mary having been betrothed, then, that her question does not make sense… unless, of course, you understand she had a vow of virginity. Then, it makes perfect sense.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #0b5394;">Error #2: Mr. White claimed, “…it was obvious that the angel was speaking about an immediate conception.” And, closely related to this, Mr. White then claimed Mary asked the question, "How shall this happen...?" because she knew "<em>at that time</em> she could not conceive in a natural manner?"</span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Really? It was <em>obvious</em>?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">There is not a single word in this text or anywhere else in Scripture that indicates Mary knew her conception was going to be immediate and via supernatural means. That’s why she asked the question, "How shall this happen...?" It appears she did <em>not </em>know the answer. How could she? Why would it ever enter into her mind? There would be no way apart from a revelation from God that she <em>could </em>have known. And most importantly, according to the text, the angel did not reveal the fact that Mary would conceive immediately and supernaturally until <em>after </em>Mary asked the question.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">But let's suppose Mary was "engaged" as Mr. White claims. There would be even less reason to believe the conception would be immediate and somehow supernatural then there would be if Mary had a vow of virginity (though there’s really no reason to think this in either scenario). An "engaged" woman would have naturally assumed that when she and St. Joseph would later consummate their marriage, they could expect a very special surprise from God. They were going to conceive the Messiah. There would be no reason to think anything else. And there would be no reason to ask the question.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">One final thought: When Mary asked the question, "How <em>shall </em>this happen, since I do not know man," the verb <em>to be</em> (Gr.-<em>estai</em>) is in the <em>future tense. </em>There is nothing here that would indicate she was thinking of the immediate. The future tense here most likely refers to… the future. The question was not how she could conceive <em>immediately</em>. The question was how she could conceive <em>ever.</em> The angel answered that question for her. </span></div>
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<span class="field-content" style="color: #0b5394;"><a class="imagecache imagecache-headshot_60x75 imagecache-linked imagecache-headshot_60x75_linked" href="http://www.catholic.com/profiles/tim-staples" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="imagecache imagecache-headshot_60x75" src="http://www.catholic.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/headshot_60x75/images/profilepics/Tim_Staples%5B1%5D.jpg" height="75" style="border: 0px; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%;" title="" width="60" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization here at Catholic Answers, but he was not always Catholic. Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian...</span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-86919312930384975862014-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:002014-11-20T13:22:03.378-08:00SAINTS - GLORIOUS SAINTS <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-49185131544493727232014-08-21T12:41:00.003-07:002014-08-21T12:46:11.368-07:00PERPETUAL ADORATION <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;" width="535"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;">PERPETUAL ADORATION: </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;">AN ANCIENT DEVOTION IN MODERN TIMES</span></b></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Mike Aquilina</span></b></div>
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At the Transfiguration, Peter was so moved by the vision of Jesus—"radiant with light," "dazzling white"—that he wanted to build three booths and set up camp there forever.</div>
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He wanted to offer perpetual adoration to the Lord. And in that desire, he has been joined by Christians down through the ages.</div>
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In the early Church, monks would chant prayer and psalms to God without ceasing, spelling one another in shifts.</div>
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But since the Middle Ages, in the Western Church the desire for continuous prayer to the Lord has most often been expressed in perpetual eucharistic adoration: the worship of Jesus truly present in the consecrated host, either reserved in a tabernacle or exposed in a vessel called a "monstrance."</div>
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Usually sponsored by a parish, religious community or diocese, perpetual adoration is offered by successive worshipers without intermission.</div>
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Through the first millennium of Christianity, there is little evidence of worship of the Eucharist outside the liturgy, and still less of anything that might be called "perpetual."</div>
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With the Eucharist, as with the Trinity, the Church gradually grew in its understanding of the mystery. Councils defined doctrines more clearly, and people responded with devotion ever more ardent.</div>
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Often this happened in response to heresies. Particularly when false teachers denied the goodness of the created world or the goodness of the human body, orthodox Catholics responded with deeper reverence for the Eucharist—the Word himself made flesh. To deny matter's goodness, they believed, is eventually to deny the incarnation of God in Jesus.</div>
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Such was the heresy of the Priscillians, a gnostic sect in fourth through sixth-century Spain. Priscillians disdained marriage, wine and meat, and were condemned by many Spanish bishops and councils. In reparation for the offense of this heresy, the cathedral church of Lugo, Spain, is said to have offered perpetual eucharistic adoration for more than 1,000 years, up to the present day.</div>
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Another anti-matter heresy, Albigensianism, arose in 12th-century France, and there faithful Catholics responded with a spontaneous surge of eucharistic worship.</div>
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In what would become the first recorded instance of true perpetual eucharistic adoration, King Louis VII in September 1226—having just defeated the Albigensians—called his subjects to offer thanksgiving to the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Avignon.</div>
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So many people showed up the bishop extended the time of exposition into the night—and then into perpetuity. The Holy See ratified his decision, and adoration continued uninterrupted till the persecutions of the French Revolution in 1792. Perpetual adoration resumed—in 1829.</div>
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During the Middle Ages, many more of the faithful began to adore the Blessed Sacrament apart from the Mass. At first, the custom was to worship the host reserved in the tabernacle. Eventually, some came to practice the devotion with the tabernacle doors open. Later still, solemn exposition of the host, in a monstrance, became the norm.</div>
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The practice spread through Europe and culminated in the establishment of the Feast of Corpus Christi—Latin for "the Body of Christ"—in 1264. The feast itself, now celebrated each June, helped spread the devotion.</div>
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In 1393, an Italian religious community arose, "Religiosi bianchi del corpo di Gesu Christo," dedicated primarily to adoration of the sacrament. The custom of uninterrupted "Forty Hours" exposition began in Milan in the mid-1500s, and in 1592 was formally recognized by Pope Clement VIII, who commanded its observance in Rome's churches.</div>
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But the real flowering of perpetual adoration came at the beginning of the 16th century during the early years of the Protestant Reformation, when church lootings were common, as were desecrations of the Blessed Sacrament. Faithful Catholics made reparation to God by keeping a loving vigil before Him, around the clock. Perpetual adoration became a symbol of constancy in a volatile age.</div>
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Throughout Europe and eventually America, new religious orders arose centered on uninterrupted eucharistic adoration. In 1907, the Catholic Encyclopedia could state that such orders were too numerous to list.</div>
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In the United States, the practice waxed through the middle decades of this century, especially as Archbishop Fulton Sheen promoted the custom of spending a Holy Hour before the tabernacle. But eucharistic devotions in general waned in the '60s and '70s. Some liturgists rejected the devotion, saying it detracted from the Mass.</div>
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Today, though, it seems to be on the rebound. </div>
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For example, the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., recently launched perpetual adoration in a chapel at its seminary in Stamford. And during the great blizzard of January 1996, parishioners at St. Michael's Church in Annandale, Va., maintained a vigil that had been unbroken since the early '80s. They camped out in the chapel with sleeping bags.</div>
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Msgr. Francis Mannion, president of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, believes that perpetual adoration is gaining popularity because it has "the sense of dignity, reverence and solemnity" that people miss in the way the Mass is celebrated today.</div>
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"The transcendent character of the Eucharist is strongly evident in eucharistic devotions, as are the contemplative and mystical dimensions of the Eucharist," he said.</div>
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He disagrees with liturgists who "express alarm at the return of eucharistic devotions."</div>
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"At a time when surveys are showing that belief in Christ's eucharistic presence is on the wane even among church-going Catholics, such devotions can play an important role in restoring authentic Catholic faith at a popular level," he said.</div>
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Mike Aquilina is editor of The Pittsburgh Catholic.</div>
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<span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Organization Promotes Adoration</span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><br />
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Since the early 1970s, L. Owen Traynor has been promoting perpetual eucharistic adoration throughout the world.</div>
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Today, his organization, Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, supplies information and support for people who wish to establish the devotion in their parish or diocese. PEA's statutes were approved by the Holy See in 1991.</div>
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Traynor can be reached at 660 Club View Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90024.</div>
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—Mike Aquilina</div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-66278094752932828902014-08-09T16:23:00.000-07:002014-08-09T16:23:25.328-07:00St. Thomas Aquinas 5 Proofs of GOD'S Existence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Aquinas' Five Proofs<br />
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What real evidence can be supplied for God's existence? St. Thomas, in his Summa Theologica, sets forth five separate proofs for the existence of God, Unlike St. Anselm's proof, which deals with pure concepts, St. Thomas' proofs rely on the world of our experience-what we can see around us. In these proofs we can easily see the influence of Aristotle and his doctrine of the Four Causes.<br />
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l) The Proof from Motion. We observe motion all around us. Whatever is in motion now was at rest until moved by something else, and that by something else, and so on. But if there were an infinite series of movers, all waiting to be moved by something else, then actual motion could never have got started, and there would be no motion now. But there is motion now. So there must be a First Mover which is itself unmoved. This First Mover we call God.<br />
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2) The Proof from Efficient Cause. Everything in the world has its efficient cause--its maker--and that maker has its maker, and so on. The coffee table was made by the carpenter, the carpenter by his or her parents, and on and on. But if there were just an infinite series of such makers, the series could never have got started, and therefore be nothing now. But there is something everything there is! So there must have been a First Maker, that was not itself made, and that First Maker we call God.<br />
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3) The Proof from Necessary vs. Possible Being. Possible, or contingent, beings are those, such as cars and trees and you and I, whose existence is not necessary. For all such beings there is a time before they come to be when they are not yet, and a time after they cease to be when they are no more. If everything were merely possible, there would have been a time, long ago, when nothing had yet come to be. Nothing comes from nothing, so in that case there would be nothing now! But there is something now-the world and everything in it-so there must be at least one necessary being. This Necessary Being we call God.<br />
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4) The Proof from Degrees of Perfection. We all evaluate things and people in terms of their being more or less perfectly true, good, noble and so on. We have certain standards of how things and people should be. But we would have no such standards unless there were some being that is perfect in every way, something that is the truest, noblest, and best. That Most Perfect Being we call God.<br />
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5) The Proof from Design. As we look at the world around us, and ourselves, we see ample evidence of design--the bird's wing, designed for the purpose of flight; the human ear, designed for the purpose of hearing; the natural environment, designed to support life; and on and on. If there is design, there must be a designer. That Designer we call God<br />
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triskelion, I interpret proof #3 as talking about the creation of the elements; proof #2 as talking about the forming of the elements into creation; and proof #1 as creation being put into motion.<br />
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The irony of proving God exists is, to a non-believer it can never be proven, but to a believer, proof of God can be seen just about everywhere.<br />
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Of course, if you need to see it to believe it, do you really have faith?</blockquote>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-22510241165060545152014-08-05T13:44:00.001-07:002014-08-05T14:09:22.193-07:00MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b> </b><br />
<b>MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS . . .</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Youve-Got-Mail-VHS-Hanks/dp/6305368139/ref=cm_aya_orig_subj" style="color: #996633;">You've Got Mail </a></b></div>
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Great movie . . . charming! Many smiles! My little French<br />
granddaughter, Naomi and I watched "You've Got Mail" together.<br />
Naomi is 7. </div>
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There is a place in the movie where the shopgirl/owner, Kathleen<br />
Kelly/MegRyan, closes her children's book store door for the final<br />
time. Kathleen Kelly has lovely memories of growing up, going to<br />
work in that store with her mother and "twirling" in the back<br />
corner. </div>
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In fact, there is a picture of her "twirling" with her mother on the<br />
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Kathleen and her mother twirling, and a sign pasted on the frame<br />
saying, "not for sale!"</div>
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When Kathleen closes the door of the "Shop Around the Corner"<br />
for this final time, now totally empty of books and chairs and<br />
pictures on the walls, she removes the large bell of brass from the<br />
door, turns off the lights; she takes a final look back and for a brief<br />
moment she "sees" that memory of her mother twirling her as a child. </div>
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She hears the music. </div>
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It is a most precious moment. </div>
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It is enchanting.</div>
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I told Naomi that she always needs to remember that part of the<br />
movie. Even though the store had to be closed, and even though<br />
a chain store put Kathleen out of business, and even though Kathleen<br />
had to leave this place she loved. . .no one, not ever in her life, could<br />
take away the memory. </div>
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Memories are ours forever.</div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-44778214239943663242014-07-06T11:30:00.001-07:002014-09-29T13:44:25.830-07:00A YEAR WITH THE ANGELS - by Mike Aquilina <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjpEEbVgQxIPxEuh2Teh2VcMnDpQR4efR5VE0vi03WFwQfFifGwtTXywAe_ILuWuMM9uJ8VvYpSgGJo8R7KEQKtVl_Mrdx8jqZwevhipN6rDsleoU9udx4PpraMTb_jlVOQvAQJLeRo7o7bIjB4mXTo1zSGrQdw052WaHDAoFgiJ8viNCbhfZjSIJx1Jw" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="images" border="0" src="http://d188rgcu4zozwl.cloudfront.net/content/B006XL19CI/images/128127418.jpg" id="54173" style="position: static; top: 0px;" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="top: 0px;"></span></span> Christians believe in angels. That goes without saying. From the first pages of the Old Testament to the last pages of the New, God speaks of these mysterious beings. They appear as mighty creatures, pure spirits, guarding the gates of paradise, offering purest worship, guiding and protecting God’s people. When God delivers the law, he does so through the ministry of angels. When he delivers his people in battle, it is through the intervention of an angelic host.</div>
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The Scriptures speak also of fallen angels, who use their phenomenal power to tempt human beings and thwart our salvation.</div>
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Angels appear at every moment in the story line of human history. St. Paul explains that in the Old Testament, they act as glorified babysitters—“guardians and trustees” (Gal. 4:1-3)—trying their best to keep an unruly people in line. When they appear to the human senses, their form is terrifying. When people see an angel, their immediate response is to fall on the ground in fear and awe (Num. 22:31).</div>
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In the New Testament, however, the relationship changes. In the opening chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, we find angels attending a human birth. We even see an archangel paying homage to a peasant woman of Nazareth, hailing her as “full of grace.”</div>
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Angels appear often in the New Testament, but now as the servants of Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man. Moreover, they appear as servants of those who are in Christ, those who have been “changed into his likeness” (2 Cor. 3:18) and have come to share in his riches (2 Cor. 8:9). As children of God, we are now heirs of God and “fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17). In every Christian, angels serve the divinized humanity of Jesus Christ.</div>
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The first generation lived with an intense awareness of the presence of the angels. In the Acts of the Apostles, Rhoda’s companions would have been far less surprised by the apparition of an angel than they were by the sudden appearance of St. Peter (Acts 12:11).</div>
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This does not mean that the angels are any less powerful in relation to us. Nor does it mean they are any less awe-inspiring. In the Book of Revelation, when St. John encounters an angel, his instinct is to fall down and worship (Rev. 22:8f). But the angel lifts him up to stand as his fellow.</div>
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This is what Christ has accomplished: the holy communion of heaven and earth, all united in him, all united in worship. Thus, when we go to Mass, we are constantly invoking the angels, because they are present with us, and we sing their songs with them. The “Gloria” is the song they raised at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:14). The “Sanctus” is what they sing at heaven’s throne (Rev. 4:8).</div>
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We should not cease to marvel that the angels are now our “fellows.” We should not let this truth grow old or grow cold for us.</div>
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Consider the fact that you have a guardian angel. Jesus assured us that each of us has one, from our earliest days (Matt. 18:10).</div>
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Consider that God has made this person exclusively for your care. Your guardian angel is smarter than a thousand Einsteins, and stronger than any army on earth. And God created him to serve you!</div>
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What difference does that make in your life? What difference should it make?</div>
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If a human relative or benefactor gave you a sports car, or a half-million dollars, or your dream home, you would find frequent and creative ways to express your gratitude. How often do you thank God for the extraordinary gift of your guardian angel?</div>
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And how often do we thank our angels for their care? Remember: angels are persons. To ignore them, after all they do for us, is at least rude, but also daft. Why would we choose not to enter into a close friendship and “working relationship” with these creatures who are dear to God and far closer to us than our nearest kin?</div>
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What sets too many Christians today apart from their ancestors in the faith is our neglect of devotion to the angels. For the early Christians, this was a lively devotion. Thus, for this book I have selected three hundred and sixty-five meditations from the writings of the early Fathers of the Church. Some of it is admittedly speculative—and the Fathers were the first to acknowledge that there were some things about the angels that they couldn’t know. But most of it is plain truth, learned from Scripture and taught by the Church. And it’s all classic Christianity. As such, it demands our attention and cries out for our imitation.</div>
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I believe the angels are the great neglected intermediaries in human relationships. How much stronger our families would be—our neighborhoods would be—our friendships would be—our workplace would be—our society would be—if only we, habitually and silently, called upon the help of the guardian angels of the people who are with us in the course of a day.</div>
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In the coming year, let’s draw closer to our angels, through prayer and study, as we meet them in the following pages, and as we meet them wherever we go.</div>
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"First You Wring the Chicken's Neck" December 30, 2012<br />
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By <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A32UUBSGHW403P/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pdp">Terry Fenwick</a><br />
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Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (Hardcover)<br />
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Amazon wrote: "We're extinguishing the minds (and souls) of our children. Play dates, 'helicopter parenting', No Child Left Behind, video games, political correctness: these and other insidious trends in child rearing and education are now the hallmarks of childhood."<br />
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Mike Aquilina, an author friend of mine, sent 'Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child' to me for Christmas saying, "My wife had been reading Tony Esolen's book for a couple of weeks, and she loves it. One morning I went down to find her laughing out loud, and she said, 'Go order one of these for Terry Fenwick.' So I did."<br />
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I laughed at the comments on the book cover BEFORE I opened the book!!!<br />
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Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy, Boston College, wrote: "This book made me want to jump up (very high) and cheer, or run around (very far) and shout warnings. The best way I can think of to save Western culture, next to everyone deciding to become saints, would be for all educators to take this uncommonly commonsensical book to heart. A worthy Successor to C. S. Lewis's the Abolition of Man."<br />
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Alice von Hilderbrand wrote: "A great book that should be in the hands of any educator worthy of this title -- that is someone conscious of his awesome task to help chisel a child's soul and open his eyes to what is true, good, and beautiful. A sheer pleasure."<br />
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Michael Medved, Father Dwight Longenecker and Robert Royal have the same great praise for "ten ways" - check the back cover and you will find my title "First You Wring the Chicken's Neck" on page 79 - Keep Children Away from Machines and Machinists.<br />
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I am 81 and I "really" like the book. Our children are raised and they are raising theirs now . . . life goes on and this book could make a big difference in the lives of many of your children. Life is more confusing than it used to be . . . but, it is never too late, for that parent who wants to take on the, "awesome task to help chisel a child's soul and open his eyes to what is true, good, and beautiful."<br />
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Happy Reading and Happy New Year.<br />
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Many Christians today give the impression that they do not feel at ease in the Church and that they only remain faithful to her with difficulty. I must say that my experience is contrary to theirs. The Church has never disappointed me. It is rather I who would be inclined to accuse myself of not having drawn profit enough from all that she had to offer to me. A theologian once wrote that he could understand Simone de Beauvoir leaving the Church as she knew it, as though it were necessary to wait until Vatican II to find a Church in which one could breathe!</div>
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The Christian environment in which I grew up was the same as Simone de Beauvoir's. Its masters were Gilson and Maritain, Bernanos and Mauriac, Mounier and Garric. This environment was of an exceptional quality. And this would have sufficed to enable me to become devoted to it.</div>
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But other people may not have had this privilege. They may have encountered Christian milieus which were narrow minded, mediocre or oppressive. They may have felt bullied in their legitimate aspirations. Moreover, they may have noticed a disagreement between the faith as it is professed and the way it is practiced. They may have felt that intellectual freedom, the struggle for justice, human fulfillment could be found to a greater extent somewhere else. And it is true that the Church, in the concrete and Sociological reality of the milieus which represent her that which Peguy used to call "the Christian world," can be a disappointment.</div>
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If the reasons for remaining in the Church or for separating from her were of this order, then they would not be very strong. That is why I do not admit that one leaves the Church on such grounds, any more that I remain within the Church because of contrary motives. If we want to find fraternal communities, generous people, inventive minds, these can, after all, be found elsewhere.</div>
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What draws me to the Church is not the sympathy that I feel towards the people who compose her, but what is given to me through these men, no matter who they are, that is to say, the truth and life of Jesus Christ. I am attached to the Church because she cannot be separated from Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ freely gave himself' to her, because I cannot find Jesus Christ in any authentic way outside her. That is the answer to those who say: "Why the Church?" Any search for Christ outside the Church is an illusion. It is to the Church alone, who is his spouse, that Christ gave the riches of his glory for distribution to the world.</div>
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First, what Christ gave to the Church is his truth. What interests me is not the personal ideas of this or that theologian. It is the truth of the faith. Now this truth is not at the mercy of one or another particular interpretation. Christ did not turn his message over to the arbitrariness of individual interpretations. He confided it to the Church that he founded. He assured this Church of his assistance to keep her intact, to make the riches of her doctrine explicit, to proclaim it to successive generations, to reject alterations in it.</div>
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It is essentially to his Apostles united with Peter and to the successors of the Apostles united with the successor of Peter that Christ has entrusted this deposit. In a Church where unfortunately today the most controversial opinions are expressed, where there is no article of the Creed which is not emptied of its contents by the new sophists, in order to adapt it to the taste of the times, just as Saint Paul had long ago predicted, I cannot express sufficiently the joy I felt in reading the profession of faith of Paul VI. It is the pure crystalline form and undistorted echo of what I believe.</div>
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It is the Church who, by her Magisterium, preserves, preaches, and spreads the truth of Jesus Christ. She has been doing this for almost two thousand years. She has been confronted by all ideological currents. From the gnostics of the second century to the modernists of the twentieth, these currents have tried to penetrate her and to alter her faith. Theologians have been carried off by these currents; but the Church has preserved the truth without impairment.</div>
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How many times was she not told that this or that dogma of hers was no longer acceptable to the intellectuals of the day. But these systems have collapsed and the faith has endured. We have here a spectacle to strike us with awe. Man is not condemned to the complete uncertainty so contrary to the nature of his intellect, made as it was to grasp reality, it is the delight of the intellect to rest in the truth. And it is this joy which the Church provides.</div>
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Some will accuse her of pride, of triumphalism, even of being possessive. "We do not possess the truth, we are in search of it," said one bishop, who was badly inspired that day and confused by accusations like these. And certainly no human intellectual authority has the right to require this unconditional assent of the mind which is faith.</div>
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But the point is that the infallibility of the Church is not dependent on any human authority. It is the very infallibility of God. "And how can we not believe in God," asked Clement of Alexandria. This infallibility is not something the Church has dreamed up on her own. She is only a poor woman. She receives it from her Spouse. But it is something real that she receives. And that is why she can acknowledge it in humility, for she knows that she had no part in making it up. But she cannot relinquish it to please certain ears, for, in doing so, she would betray her Spouse.</div>
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Who can rob me of this joy? It will certainly not be those sad spirits who hold in doubt the very trademark of the intellect and regard certainty with a suspicious eye as a kind of misguided search for comfort and consolation. And all their psychoanalytical warnings about the need for security will never embarrass me in the serenity of my faith. It is their intellect which is ailing, with their sick relish for distrust, which is the opposite of a healthy and joyful critique. For there is a healthy type of critique which is, within the bounds of the faith, the very mainspring of progress. But there is an unhealthy distrust, which paralyzes adherence to the faith, shakes certainty and renders contemplation sterile.</div>
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With the Church of Jesus Christ, with the plain common women of my village, with Pope Paul VI, with Bernanos and Claudel, I profess the Creed of visible and invisible things, I contemplate the immense spaces which Revelation displays before the wondering eyes of my heart. I contemplate Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father and pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh. I contemplate innumerable angelic persons, the saints who gaze on the face of God and who watch over me, and among them, the Virgin Mary exalted in glory in her soul and in her body.</div>
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And I allow these gentlemen to explain to me gravely, with their pedantry, that religious sociology makes us see in this representation the mirror of feudal society, with its gradated hierarchies, and that our democratic society requires seeing things in a more horizontal arrangement. I leave them to suspect that the angels are perhaps only a way of expressing the fact that God is manifesting Himself-and that, in any case, the fact that God expresses Himself is an anthropomorphism linked to a pre-critical and pre-dialectical stage of theology-and that finally the very sense of the word "God" is dependent on a structured research which will allow it to be situated in the system to which it belongs.</div>
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They wear looks of consternation when we speak of the profession of faith of Paul VI and they attempt to explain that they have nothing to do with this type of Church. But they are the ones who will always be behind the times, always ready to embark on the second. last boat, but never getting there in time. Apollinaire had more than instinct going for him, when he wrote in La Belle Rousse: "Pope Pius X, it is you who are of men the most modern."</div>
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For what the Pope says has the youthfulness and freshness of truth. And what they say has always the tired and old-fashioned look of the pseudo-modern. They want to institute democracy in the Church at a time when she is in the throes of a crisis of authority, and secularism, when the world is crying out for the sacred.</div>
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They remain in the Church in spite of the Pope, doing their best to dilute papal authority. I myself remain in the Church because of the Pope and not in spite of the Pope. I am Catholic because of infallibility and not in spite of infallibility. For what I am seeking is not the best form of government-we could argue about that indefinitely-but the authority of God, beyond human uncertainties. Now it is ultimately by Peter and by Peter's successors that the Church enjoys the presence of this divine authority, which is precisely what I am looking for beyond all human opinions.</div>
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The authority, they will tell me, is the Word of God as contained in the inspired Scriptures. And this word of God receives an interpretation sometimes in one sense, sometimes in another, by the exegetes. It one had to wait on them in order to know if there are three persons in God, if Christ is truly the pre-existing Son of God, if he was really conceived by the Holy Spirit, if he was resurrected from the dead, one would have to wait for a long time. For some say white and others black. Not that they have failed to render any service. But it was not to these that Christ entrusted the interpretation of the Scriptures. He entrusted this to Peter and to his successors.</div>
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I am in the Church because it is the Church alone that gives me the divinely authorized interpretation of the Scriptures. It is she who, throughout the centuries, has explained with authority what was implied in the affirmations of the Scriptures. It is the Gospel I am looking for, but it is precisely in the Church alone that I find the Gospel, because it is to the Church alone that Christ gave his Gospel. To want to go directly to the Gospel without passing through the Church is to substitute a human interpretation of the Gospel for the authorized interpretation of the Gospel.</div>
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I leave the dead bury the dead. I let the morticians dissect a dead scripture. I let the grave-diggers discover, as they say, a tibia of Jesus Christ, and this, they add, would not change anything. If Christ is not resurrected, that is to say if his fleshly body has not been transfigured by the Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee that my own fleshly body will be transfigured by the Holy Spirit, then my faith is useless, as Saint Paul has already said.</div>
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For me Jesus Christ is alive and he is alive in the Church. And it is through the living Church that he is still talking to me today, "making me understand by his Holy Spirit all that he had taught me." It is to this living word that my faith adheres. I am interested in what the exegetes say. But I believe what the Church teaches.</div>
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Another reason that causes me to cling to the Church is the sacraments. If I remain in the Church, it is because she is a vital milieu. She is the paradise where the energies of the Holy Spirit are at work. This is where the great rivers of living waters wash me of my stains, where the tree of life nourishes me with its fruit. Tertullian said: "We, the little fish, we cannot live outside the water." I cannot live outside the milieu of the sacraments. There is no spiritual life which does not bathe in this vital milieu. For the love of God has been diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and it is to the Church that the Holy Spirit was given and it is by the sacraments that he is communicated.</div>
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But they have discovered a new religion which is the religion of the "word". We know very well where this originated. It was in the theology of Karl Barth and in the article logos of the dictionary of Kittel. But the "word" has become their specialty. They began hammering on the "word" in May ‘69. They have used it so much that we must now beg them to be silent; so much that the young are going to Taize asking for a silence that the churches are unable to offer them anymore.</div>
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They have mixed together the Word of God, the Kerygma of the Apostles, the whole universe of words. Radio and television have offered them a wonderful instrument for their chattering. And what they say creates a screen of words which bears the stamp of mystery.</div>
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All of a sudden, poor pastors no longer know what to do. They had become priests to distribute the sacraments. And they were quite right. It is indeed for this reason that we become priests. And it is always this which is asked of priests, But now they have been told that it is the ‘word" which is the important thing and that the sacraments are secondary. They have been informed with scholarly airs that the ritual is a vestige of the Old Testament and of paganism, reeking of superstition. And so, they try to become as useful as they can, in doing their psychoanalysis, in building their apartment blocks, in teaching sociology, and, of course, in streaming out words without tiring.</div>
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But how is this going to change the world? How is this going to change life? Jesus Christ did not come to make speeches. He came to change life. He changed it by his death and his resurrection. He introduced our flesh into the glory of the Father. And as Christ's flesh transfigured by the Holy Spirit is one with our flesh, from the flesh of the resurrected Christ the life of the Spirit is bent on communicating itself to all flesh, just as fire, once kindled in the brush, sets the whole forest ablaze. Now it is by the sacraments that this life of the Spirit is communicated. And it is by the priests that the sacraments are given.</div>
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I do not need any other teacher. If Jesus was only a good example, an enthusiastic model, a call for action, he would not interest me any more than other teachers. The Christian language as a language does not interest me. It only interests me by what it says, through its poor human words. It tells me that God loved me and sent his Son who is God, wisdom of God, power of God, to pick me up in the midst of my perishable condition, to liberate me from sin and death, to make me, from now on, a spiritual being, before incorporating me, after my death, into his incorruptible life.</div>
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What is important to me in the sacraments is that they are the means by which this life is communicated to me. It is important to me that the effectiveness of God is working through these visible signs. Believing in them has nothing to do with some sort of magic, it is the essence of my faith, the object of which is the presence of a divinizing power in the Church. I plunge into the sacraments as into living waters to renew my life in them, as when a little child I was immersed in them to receive that life. The sacraments are not in the first place the exterior signs of my adherence to the faith. They are primarily the visible signs of God's actions.</div>
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But they will tell me: "You seem to think that baptism takes away original sin. But you must first explain what original sin is." If I had to wait for their learned explanations in order to believe, if I had to suspend my faith in parentheses until they have finally explained everything, where would I be with all this? Explanations follow on and on with no result.</div>
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Original sin, the fact that I bear the burden of death and sin and that only the power of God can deliver me from this, is what Saint Paul tells me, what the Church teaches me, and what I believe in. And it is because of this that baptism is not, first of all, the exterior sign of my engagement in the Church. Before all else, it is the sign of Christ's action destroying original sin. And that is why little children are baptized, in order to receive the gift of God, to be alive.</div>
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The Eucharist renews life in me by communion with the resurrected Christ who is really present under the species of bread and wine. What is important to me is this Real Presence. I know that the Church alone possesses this. I know that this presence can only be real when constituted by validly ordained ministers. That is what I am looking for and what I do not find anywhere else. I am hungry for the Body of Christ-and not for some kind of symbol: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have life."</div>
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The certainty that I will find this Real Presence in the Catholic Church is what keeps me attached to her, apart from the interest suggested by any other consideration.</div>
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In the sacrament of penance, man's reconciliation with God, which is an essential aspect of the divine action accomplished by Jesus Christ, is continued by the ministry of the priest. For the power to forgive sins depends on God alone. Christ possesses this power by his divine nature and he gave it to the Apostles-and not to every Christian. The Apostles transmitted their power to their successors. It is a divine action which is performed through their hands. It restores friendship with God to those who have lost it. It regenerates the life of grace. It intensifies anew the energies of charity. It enables man to live with the freedom of God's sons, which is not the false freedom of those who scorn the law, but liberation from the slavery of sin, reconciling man again with the plan of God and making him taste the sweetness of His law.</div>
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I love the Church because I am looking for life. The goal of divine action in Christ through the Spirit is to make man a person alive in the spirit. The goal of divine action is to open the intellect to the mystery of God, to lead man into the furthest depths of reality, to make him realize that the ground of being is the eternal love of the divine persons and man's participation in this love. The goal of divine action is to expand supernatural charity which moves me to help my brother men, not only in the human dimension of their earthly life but in the realization of their divine vocation.</div>
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The goal of divine action is to beatify my heart in the possession of God's benefits, in incorruptible life, in contemplation of the face of God. Now this life, this charity, this understanding can only breathe and develop in the life-giving atmosphere of the sacraments. The sacraments remain sterile if they do not bear the fruits of charity. But charity cannot bear fruit if it is not engrafted on Christ by means of the sacraments.</div>
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Charity is the growth of that life whose germ is given only by the sacraments. Without this charity, you can indeed find generosity and dedication, intelligence and virtue, happiness and beauty; the reason is that all that God has created is good. But this is true for all men, Hindus and Moslems, deists and atheists. All this does not form part of the special gift from Christ and can well be found outside the Church. But what is His gift is given only by the sacraments of the Church.</div>
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The word has no other goal but to tell us of God's action. It tells of his action in Abraham and Moses. It tells of his action in the Incarnation and in the Resurrection. It tells of his action in our days in the sacraments. For the sacraments are the continuation of God's marvels in the Old and in the New Testament: "Whoever will believe and be baptized will be saved."</div>
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It is not the word which makes up the substance of the sacraments, it is the sacrament which gives the word its substance. The sacrament is not a rite to be deemed as slightly superfluous or, eventually, useless, a pagan survival in a secularized world. It is the instrument by which Christ communicates his life.</div>
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But they no longer believe in the power of the sacraments. They have invented a theory of an implicit and anonymous Christianity, according to which every man is a Christian by the very fact of his belonging to human nature. The Church then, the Church instituted by Jesus Christ, becomes a luxury for a few elite.</div>
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This opens the way for ridding the Church of the poor, and any one else who comes along, because, after all, they can get along perfectly well without her. But why then should I concern myself with this Church, if she no longer corresponds to a vital need? Why should I desire to attract others to her, if they can do perfectly well without her? And the moment she becomes a luxury, she quickly looms as an obstacle. Eventually, she will have to disintegrate amid the forward movement of humanity.</div>
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And this is exactly their aim. They think that they are the prophets of the new church which is humanity on the march. And they persist in destroying the Church, the true Church, the one that Jesus Christ instituted, this Church that is the only dispenser of the gifts of grace. They seek to impose a sort of bad faith on those who believe in this Church and who should thereby end up with feelings of guilt for remaining within her. And how does their proposal affect me? If I am interested in humanity on the march, I can choose for a guide anyone I wish among Brezhnev or Mao, Nixon, or Franco, or any other you care to mention. But the life of God can only be given to me by the Church of the sacraments.</div>
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They want to politicize the Church. Her mission would be to direct humanity in its search for justice and peace. But there the old anticlericalism of my Breton ancestors awakens within me. My ancestors had seen too much of those Breton pastors who wanted to direct their parishioners in politics. And this caused them to rise against a Church that interfered with what was none of her business. Despite this, they remained fundamentally Christians-and sometimes even more so than their pastors. Today I feel the same reaction. It is always the same pastors who want to direct politics. They have only changed their political sentiments.</div>
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What we are asking of priests is to give baptism, penance, communion. We are not asking them for political advice. And above all, we are asking them not to lay down political conditions for the reception of the sacraments. They have done this more than enough in the past. They have brandished their threats of excommunication too often. I knew some who refused absolution under the German occupation to those who were in favor of De Gaulle.</div>
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They are beginning to do the same thing again. They are making socialism an article of faith, as they did with the monarchy. They admit to their Catholic action groups only those who display not the white robe of baptism, but the red flag of the revolution. Let them mind their own business!</div>
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And what is their business that is so great. They imagine that modern man takes no interest in God any more and that is why they try to relocate themselves in the political arena. Once more, they are a century late. For today the world is thirsting for God. It is searching for where to find him. And the mission of the Church, and the singular mission of priests is to give God to this world in its longing for him.</div>
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If I were not a priest, I would become a priest today, because I feel that priests are the great need of the world. If I were not a Catholic, I would become a Catholic, for the Church, the trustee of the fullness of the divine gifts, is what the world needs.</div>
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People were starting to come to them. And they are the ones who are leaving. Prejudices began to fall. Their Churches were filling up, their schools were flourishing, their monasteries were brilliant. And it is they who want to auction all this off, as signs of the visible Church they detest. They are ready to sell the churches, to close the schools, to scatter the monasteries. It is as though they were ashamed to be themselves. They want to hide in their lairs. They seem to be humiliated by the good feeling tendered them by civil officials; they call this constantinianism; they have a masochistic taste for persecution. And it is true that persecutions call forth exemplary virtues. The people's democracies are proof of that. But by creating elite groups of Christians, they are destroying the Christian people.</div>
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I have declared my unchanging reasons for belonging to the Church. They concern what the Church is in her substance and what an irreplaceable dowry she brings. But the Church is also the Church of historical fact, the Church in the concrete, as she exists today with her historical heritage, inserted into contemporary society, under the forms taken by her institutions. It is frequently this aspect of the Church which leads some to take leave of her.</div>
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To cite the most characteristic example, the encyclical Humanae vitae was the occasion for a certain number of priests and of the faithful to separate from the Church. Are the Church's positions regarding the great problems of today a reason for being still more attached to her, or, on the contrary, for separating from her?</div>
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I just said that she is not supposed to get into politics. That is to say, she is not to hold or impose a political stance. But this does not mean, that she must avoid intervening in political matters, insofar as things pertaining to politics are also dependent on the law of God. She does not, however, judge them in the name of political criteria, but in the name of the law of God.</div>
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And here she has something to say, when liberties are oppressed or when liberties are oppressive. She has no business choosing between economic arrangements with their balance of advantages and disadvantages. But she must judge the good or the bad uses of these arrangements. She must condemn an unrestrained use of money which is poisoning our Western world. And she must condemn an oppressive state which violates legitimate freedoms.</div>
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We know how difficult these steps are. Some would like to relegate the Church to the sacristy and forbid her to make any type of intervention in political affairs. But the Church cannot accept this, for man's destiny, for which she is responsible before God, is also fulfilled through political things. She must, in other respects, by the very fact of her prophetic mission, continually denounce the abuses of political power or of economic liberties. And she must, as an institution, establish relations with these powers and these liberties.</div>
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It is clear that, in a given circumstance, the stand she takes can be contested. But what is essential is that she refuse to allow any power or any liberty to be set up as a supreme judge, and that, as court of last resort, she exercise the right to judge any other power.</div>
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It is most important that the Church not be under the influence of politics. It is important that she approve what is sound in the existing order and that she condemn what is unacceptable in the existing disorder.</div>
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Every society is always a mixture of good and bad. And the Church must pass judgment on this. It is at such times that her interventions are valid. They may clash with certain interests. But this means little. She must condemn what is unjust even though, sometimes, she may have to suffer for this in the temporal order. But people will listen to her, if it is clear that she is inspired only by a concern to be faithful to that which God asks of her. For she is expected to remind as constantly of the requirements of fidelity to the divine law.</div>
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In this sense, the powerful effort by the Church in struggling against what is contrary to justice in our world draws me closer to her. She has not failed to speak out. Too often it has been the case that Christians do not listen. The summons addressed by the Synod to Christian laymen, to struggle in a more active way to make God's Law reign in the contemporary world, must be heard. This has nothing to do with partisan politics. It is simply a question of obedience to God. Professional, social, political action has a moral character, And the Church has the duty to remind us of their moral requirements.</div>
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But we must add that this is true in all areas. Now, some who reproach the Church for not being demanding enough on the social level, reproach her for being too demanding when it comes to sexual problems. They suspect her of abiding by out of date concepts, of not taking into account progress in biology or demographic conditions. She is told that these absurd requirements will make many people turn away from her. As for me, the same reasons which make me wish that the Church be demanding an the level of social duty, also make me wish that she be so on the level of sexual ethics. The encyclical Humanae Vitae, by the courage of its position against the modern degradation of love, was for me one more reason to love the Church.</div>
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I know the difficult problems encountered by many couples. I know the dramatic problems raised by demographic evolution. But I also know that the way love and marriage are lived is essential to a civilization. I know how much they touch the deepest zones of the human persons More than this, I know how much they are dishonored and degraded in the modern world.</div>
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I know that by maintaining its requirements the Church is defending the most precious human values. I would loose respect for her if she were to become the lax accomplice of a contemptible world. I want to see her filled with infinite compassion, for I want her to be open to all. But I want her to be uncompromising, for that is how she will uphold all that is best in man.</div>
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It is the same with the responsibilities of the intellect. Here again, it often happens that those who blame the Church for not being demanding enough on the social level, accuse her of being intransigent, obscurantist and sectarian on the intellectual level. As if the domain of the intellect were a place where everything is to be permitted, as if it had no serious side, as if it did not engage responsibility. Now the area of the intellect is the most serious of all. For it is finally the views of the mind which govern the orientation of the cities.</div>
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What our contemporary world misses the most is not material resources, but the norms which would permit those resources to be put at the service of man. And our time is precisely one in which the intellect is undergoing one of its gravest crisis, in which it is the most perturbed part of man.</div>
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Here too, the demands of the Church are what makes me love her. In a world which opposes one arbitrary system to another, where minds see in thought nothing more than the projection of their subjectivity, where the requirements of action become the only rule, the Church believes that the human intellect is able to attain the knowledge of reality and that this agreement with reality constitutes truth. I love the Church that believes that there is truth and there is error. I love the Church that refuses to let people consider metaphysical truths as just some opinions among others. I love the Church that sees in the denial of God, in the denial of man's immortality, in the denial of objective ethics, perversions of the mind.</div>
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I am not turned away from the Church by her positions on the important questions of our time, as declared by her responsible representatives; on the contrary, I am all the more firmly attached to her. At present she defends authentic human values against those who destroy them. She defends authentic justice, authentic love, authentic intelligence. And she defends, against a world which would like to do without God, the religious dimension which is constitutive of man and of man's society. Without reference to this religious dimension, other human values are unable to find that which ground, and justifies them.</div>
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And precisely what hurts me is to see Christians and priests rejecting these requirements, which are the reason why I love the Church. When I see them blaming the Church for not understanding modern man, I think that she understands him far better than they do. For they are making themselves the accomplices of what is less good in him. They accept the surrender of intelligence and the loosening of morals. The Church, precisely because she loves all that is in ferment in today's world and in particular in its youth, does not accept that all this should be destroyed and perverted. Her intransigence is the expression of her love.</div>
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I remember having heard an observer remark, during the Second Vatican Council, that the great freedom of speech enjoyed by the bishops came from the fact that they knew their critics could blast the outer walls, but could never shake the rock. I feel free in the Church, free to tell what hurts me or what displeases me. And I love this freedom in others-but on condition that it proceed from love. But when such criticism gets to the point where it is destroying the substance of things and seeks to overthrow the rock, then I detest it and I feel how much I love the Church-above all for the divine gifts that she alone has to offer, but also for that certain quality she confers on things human.</div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">Jean Danielou, S.J.</span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-63535553951546386082014-04-15T13:35:00.003-07:002014-04-15T13:35:39.479-07:00Catholic Bible Dictionary - Scott Hahn <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="swSprite s_star_5_0 " style="background-image: url(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png); background-position: -30px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; display: inline-block; height: 13px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 65px;" title="5.0 out of 5 stars"><span style="left: -9999px; position: absolute;">5.0 out of 5 stars</span></span> <a class="txtlarge gl3 gr4 reviewTitle valignMiddle" href="http://www.amazon.com/review/RSWJJK5ZM8YPE/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0385512295&nodeID=283155&store=books" style="border: 0px; color: black; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 4px 0px 3px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: middle;"><strong>The CATHOLIC BIBLE DICTIONARY We've Been Waiting For!</strong></a><span class="gry valignMiddle" style="color: #666666; vertical-align: middle;"> <span class="inlineblock txtsmall" style="display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">June 17, 2009</span></span></div>
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<span class="gr10" style="padding-right: 10px;"><span class="txtsmall" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="gry" style="color: #666666;">By</span> <a class="noTextDecoration" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A32UUBSGHW403P/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp" style="border: 0px; color: #996633; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Terry Fenwick</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="inlineblock formatVariation" style="display: inline-block;"><span class="gr3 gry formatKey" style="color: #666666; padding-right: 3px;">Format:</span><span class="formatValue">Hardcover</span><span class="gl7 gr7 gry" style="color: #666666; padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;">|</span></span><span class="inlineblock avpOrVine" style="display: inline-block;"><span class="orange strong avp" style="color: #e47911; font-weight: bold;">Amazon Verified Purchase</span></span></div>
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<span class="MHRHead">Although I have only been Catholic for 6 years, for over 40 years I have been a Bible student and teacher with literally thousands of books and I do know good resource books. Catholic Bible Dictionary is a great Catholic Dictionary! I trust everything Dr. Scott Hahn has published because I know anyone seeking truth is safe under the teaching of this well-known writer and scholar; the information has been researched historically, as well as having used the Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.<br /><br />I had been on the wait list for the Catholic Bible Dictionary and was anxious for it to arrive. The Dictionary was a long time coming but I knew it would be worth the waiting. I was right! Today the Catholic Bible Dictionary arrived. I dropped everything I was holding, ran for a knife and opened the box! I fell in love with the cover which is a picture of the center section of the painting The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck. (Saint Bavo Cathedral of Ghent.) The painting is glorious! And, that is even before I opened the book! Next I opened the book and the first thing I saw was the Imprimatur . . . that is a good thing. Converts really like that.<br /><br />And then, I love the fonts. It is large print and you know immediately that everything is important. Sections are divided so that you will see where you have been and where you are going! In a dictionary? How unusual is that! And that is just at first glance! You see a list of the Church Fathers . . . this is just the beginning! I have hardly had time to look at everything but I have read some of the introductions of different Books of the Bible and they are perfect; each book of the Bible is identified. There is a history of the versions of the Bible!</span> <span style="background-color: white;">There are complete definitions for topics not covered in great detail in other dictionaries, i.e., Covenant, Liturgy, Interpretation of the Bible. On the cover there is a notation that there are "over five thousand entries as well as the latest up-to-date information on every important item, name, place, and event in Sacred Scripture."</span></div>
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Catholic Bible Dictionary is an academically solid CATHOLIC dictionary, with many superb references and very easy to read. I have already gifted this beautiful book to five friends and would not hesitate giving this to a Protestant. We will all find Truths we need to know in this new resource book. I will be back and edit this review after I use the book more, however, since people are going to want to know what people are saying about the Catholic Bible Dictionary, I wanted to get this on Amazon.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What do I say? I say one thing - "Buy it! You can't be disappointed."</span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-43421767334256422982013-12-28T17:06:00.004-08:002014-01-06T12:42:29.759-08:00CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Day 349 - "Angels"<div role="article">
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">I. THE ANGELS<br /><br />The existence of angels - a truth of faith<br /><br />328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angels" is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.<br /><br />Who are they?<br /><br />329 St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'" With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they "always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven" they are the "mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word".<br /><br />330 As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.<br /><br />Christ "with all his angels"<br /><br />331 Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him. . " They belong to him because they were created through and for him: "for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him." They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?"<br /><br />332 Angels have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham's hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples. Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself.<br /><br />333 From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of angels. When God "brings the firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship him.'" Their song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church's praise: "Glory to God in the highest!" They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them from the hands of his enemies as Israel had been. Again, it is the angels who "evangelize" by proclaiming the Good News of Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection. They will be present at Christ's return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgement.<br /><br />The angels in the life of the Church<br /><br />334 In the meantime, the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels.<br /><br />335 In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).<br /><br />336 From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life." Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.</span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-62183067287937801172013-09-28T04:10:00.000-07:002014-05-11T09:31:39.389-07:00MY BLESSED MOTHER<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hail Mary,</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Full of Grace</span></i><br />
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<i style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: large;">When first we came into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, I remember one of my dear Protestant friends said I would become a"Marian" and, she added a few other things. I did not think so, and said that I would always be "Christ centered." </span></span></i><br />
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<i style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: large;">Surprise! Without our Blessed Mother, we did not have the Baby Jesus, who was the Christ. As I grew and studied, she became my Mother - not because I studied and decided to believe it - but she became my Mother because, in Truth, she is my Blessed Mother. </span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i></i></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> ~~~~~~~ <i> </i></span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><i> </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary, </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: white;">never was it known that anyone</span></i></span></div>
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<i style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: white;"> who fled to </span><span style="background-color: white;">thy protection,</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>implored thy help,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><i><span style="background-color: white;">or sought thine intercession was left unaided.</span></i></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">O Mother of the Word Incarnate, </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">despise not my petitions,</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">but in thy mercy </span><span style="background-color: white;">hear and answer me.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">Amen.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hail Mary,</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Full of Grace,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Lord is with thee.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Blessed art thou among women,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">and blessed is the fruit</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">of thy womb, Jesus.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Holy Mary,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Mother of God,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">pray for us sinners now,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">and at the hour of death.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Amen.</span></i></span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-19029128035474324242013-07-27T11:09:00.000-07:002013-07-27T11:12:29.567-07:00REMEMBERING THE BLESSED MOTHER<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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REMEMBERING THE BLESSED MOTHER TODAY </div>
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GOD as JESUS becoming MAN</div>
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Through Mary's "Fiat"</div>
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Became SAVIOR and saved us</div>
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We love MARY, for her, "YES" </div>
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Had she said no . . .</div>
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We needed the CROSS </div>
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And all that went with it before, during and after</div>
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To understand our sin.</div>
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THE CROSS was the way GOD</div>
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Stretched out his arms in LOVE for ALL</div>
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We needed a GOD MAN. </div>
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GOD knew that</div>
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We needed a MOTHER</div>
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GOD knew that</div>
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"Fiat" </div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-49563016086740270692013-06-20T20:11:00.000-07:002014-03-08T10:05:03.198-08:00There Is A Man on The Cross<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once gave a talk on the Devil and at the end of it he said that when there is silence, day or night, he is startled by a cry. The first time he heard it, the cry came down from the cross. When he went out and searched, he found a man in the “throws of crucifixion.” He tried to take the man down, tried to take the nails out of his feet, but the man said, “Let them be; for I cannot be taken down until every man, woman, and child come together to take me down.” The archbishop pleaded, “What can I do? I cannot bear your cry.” And the Lord said to him, “Go into the world and tell every one that you meet that there is <em>a man on a cross</em>.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What a simple, direct expression of our command to evangelize. Go tell people about Christ, that he is God and that God became man and suffered and died to save us. Tell people in a way that unites them at the cross.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;">Fulton Sheen also describes in this sermon that the Devil is “anti-cross.” Anything that is of the Devil leads people away from the cross. He explains that anything that produces discord or brings about division in the Church is diabolic. That is, again, a simple test to remember when we evangelize, when we speak to others about Christ or even live our lives as Christians. </span><em style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Is what I’m about to say or do going to cause discord?</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;"> Speaking the truth can be hard enough if we fear rejection or isolation; speaking the truth in love, in a way that communicates to people not inclined to listen, takes skill and effort. You have to consider the audience before yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;">Another disruptive element in society, he says, is also the decline of discipline. “The decline of the spirit of discipline is a hatred of the cross.” It starts in schools, and when a nation tries to impose discipline without the cross, the nation becomes totalitarian. The disciplinary character of Christianity commits people to a common purpose beyond themselves. Discipline without the cross brings destruction of human liberty.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;">This Holy Week as we pray before the cross and celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, let’s pray also that we are granted the words we need to tell others about the man on the cross, and let’s pray they hear us and join with the angels in praising our Lord.</span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-25476358134172428912013-06-02T11:38:00.004-07:002013-06-02T11:38:49.924-07:00PEGGY NOONAN, THE GREAT (Writer) <br />
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<b>John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father (Hardcover)</b></div>
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<b>by Terry Fenwick </b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Everything I have ever read that Peggy Noonan has written always makes me say, "I wish I had said that!" or "Why didn't I write that?" Peggy is funny, she is deep - she is nothing short of magnificent. Peggy Noonan the Great sees life with a capital L, puts it all on paper for you and for me and makes that Life jump off the pages right into our hearts.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That is exactly what Peggy Noonan has done with John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father. She has made the life of John Paul the Great, jump off the pages, right into your heart.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Peggy Noonan is gifted at one-liners; her titles for each chapter, as well as all of her comments, need to be underlined in a brilliant color and cherished over and over as you read them again and again.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The first chapter, "I saw a Saint at Sunrise" is very heart-warming to any of us who have been to Rome but will be just as exciting to those who still yearn to make their first journey. The final chapter, "There is a Dead Saint in Rome" will take you to many thoughts of the week John Paul the Great left us.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The writing of the mini-miracle, sandwiched between the first and last chapter, of perfectly round circles of glass from an `explosion' of her coffee glass, filled with hot coffee, that reminded Peggy to pray the Rosary, will delight you. You will shake your head as you believe.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">John Paul the Great was my Christmas gift to many grateful friends who feel the same way. Buy it - you will love it. Then, write a review!</span>Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5999495685907656574.post-54917483449100473102013-04-25T11:22:00.001-07:002013-08-24T17:14:03.954-07:00Grandmother Rosa's Special Note to Pope Francis<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Because of this loving Grandmother Rosa's (Nonna Rosa) advice to her Grandson, who one day would be Pope Francis, I want each day of my life to be <i>"lived like it is my last." </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Although I am not the Celebrant at a Mass, I still am living a <i>Wonderful Life</i>, given to me by the <i>LORD GOD,</i> and have a chance to make a difference. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">No more, "Today is the first day of the rest of my life," for me but instead it is <i>"Today may be the last day of my life!" </i>I want to live each day making a difference, telling someone about his or her Angel, praying someone I really don't like (a lot) will know that GOD loves them and so do I. There has to be a million ways to live like that. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">I am going to pray for "my" president and his wife - <i>AND their daughters</i> - as the DAUGHTERS are the key - a bit more - and pray like I love them really down deep - instead of counting the days of the rest of the term and forgetting, by the way, WHO really is in charge around here ANYWAY! It is so easy to forget that the President is there because GOD allowed it and for a great reason. Why would we ever think GOD does not "think things through right from creation!"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">And I am never going to leave my Bed in the morning without kneeling giving the day to the Lord and saying, "Lord God, Lamb of God, only Son of the Father, who takes away the Sin of the World, have Mercy on me, a sinner. Pour Your Spirit OUT upon me, Fill me with Your Spirit, Baptize Me with Your Spirit to full and overflowing. Let everything I say, do or think bring GLORY TO YOUR NAME. (That was my old Protestant Prayer and I still use it - among all the other wonderful new ones - BUT I plan to mean it even more <i>each last day</i> I say it.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>And renewing all of this in my life because of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's </i></span><span style="font-size: medium;">Grandmother Rosa (Nonna Rosa)</span><i style="font-size: large;"> So let's hear it for Grannies today! </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Love to you all - Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. </span></div>
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Terry Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14664864341946607447noreply@blogger.com2