DARE TO LOVE - BENEDICT XVI

My dear young friends, I want to invite you to “dare to love.” 

Do not desire anything less for your life than a love that is strong and beautiful and that is capable of making the whole of your existence a joyful undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift to God and your brothers and sisters, in imitation of the Onewho vanquished hatred and death forever through love.

Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the 
human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women, between rich and poor, between cultures and civilizations.

Benedict XVI, Message for the 22nd World Youth Day, January 2007

Facebook Original Bio

Written in late 2008 for Bio on Facebook 

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.  

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.  

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.

Here is our story:  http://terryfenwick.blogspot.com/2011/03/coming-home-terry-and-tom-hand-in-hand.html

FAVORITE QUOTES

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  I am in a personal relationship with my Lord Jesus
  Christ, and it is not complicated! Terry Fenwick
  
  "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
  
  "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome
  
  "LORD, if you want it, I want it, too!"
  
  "To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant." Blessed John Henry Newman. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1878)
  
  "Rome has spoken, the matter is closed." St Augustine!
  
  We are an Easter people and 'Hallelujah!' is our song." Pope John Paul II
  
  "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." St. John Henry Newman
  
  "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."
  --St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 64, ad. 3
  
  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
  
  "Winning isn't everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Barry Goldwater
  
  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
  
  "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"
  
  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
  
  Blessed Mary at Cana: "Do whatever he tells you."
  
  The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive!
  
  I thank my wonderful FB friend, Ann Flook for this quote. Please take it and save it with your own. It is priceless.
  
  "You must give yourself to studying the teaching and example of Jesus, because you cannot imitate what you do not know." -Blessed Basil Moreau
  
  “We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

KNOW YOUR CATECHISM or don't tie the cat's leg to the bedpost . . .

KNOW YOUR CATECHISM 

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. 

Imitating a Holy Man

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.
Source Unknown 

Moral here is KNOW YOUR CATECHISM!!!

THE MEANING OF THE ASCENSION

• POPE BENEDICT XVI

What is the meaning of Christ's "ascension into heaven"?

It expresses our belief that in Christ human nature, the humanity in which we all share, has entered into the inner life of God in a new and hitherto unheard of way.  It means that man has found an everlasting place in God.

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.

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…

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).

MARY SINGS THE PRAISES OF GOD’S MERCY

MARY SINGS THE MAGNIFICAT    Pope John Paul II 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 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 Magnificat. "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. 1. Inspired by the Old Testament tradition, with the song of the Magnificat 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. The word Magnificat, 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. He who is mighty has done great things for meIn 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. 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 Magnificat is 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. 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). 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 Magnificat, it refers to the mysterious event of Jesus' virginal conception, which occurred in Nazareth after the angel's announcement. In the Magnificat, a truly theological song because it reveals the experience Mary had of God's looking upon her, God is not only the Almighty to whom nothing is impossible, as Gabriel had declared (cf. Lk 1:37), but also the Merciful, capable of tenderness and fidelity towards every human being. 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). 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. Redemptoris Mater, n. 37). 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. God fulfils his promises in Mary with abundant generosity 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). 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. Inspired by the Old Testament and by the spirituality of the daughter of Zion, the Magnificat 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.