Prayer to End Abortion

Note: This prayer was written by Father Frank Pavone, National Director Priests for Life.

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life,

And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters.

I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion,

Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the Resurrection of Your Son.

I am ready to do my part in ending abortion.

Today I commit myself

Never to be silent,

Never to be passive,

Never to be forgetful of the unborn.

I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement,

And never to stop defending life

Until all my brothers and sisters are protected,

And our nation once again becomes

A nation with liberty and justice

Not just for some, but for all,

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Thinking Too Highly of One's Own Righteousness

"The Pharisee and the Publican" -- by James Tissot

If there is one thing that I believe most people can't stand, it's "uppity people" who look down their noses at everyone. You know what I mean. I am talking about those people who are absolutely convinced that no one else is quite as good as them. At least that is they way in which they perceive themselves to be.

Very much like the Pharisees. they see themselves as "above" others, especially in a spiritual sense, and they believe themselves capable of judging just who is, and who is not Christian.

What they don't realize is, that by their judging of others, they tread not just on dangerous ground, but deadly ground. Jesus warned us not to judge others [Matthew 7:1], that we would be judged by the same criteria we use in judging our brothers and sisters [Matthew 7:2-3]

People make the mistake of thinking they can judge someone by how he or she looks, talks or dresses, and once again they fail to heed Jesus' warning about this as well [John 7:24] Jesus also told us we can't read the heart as God can [John 8:15], and that only He can truly judge [John 8:16].

Now when I talk about judging how someone dresses, I am not referring to those who are scantily clad, but those who's manner of dress may come from more modest means. I know of an instance of this.

This was in a church where one farmer attended every Sunday dressed in his bib overalls. Some of the people in that church complained to the pastor that the man was not dressed "good enough" to come before the Lord.

The pastor told them that he was grateful for a God who didn't look at how well they were dressed, but looked at how well they held Him in their hearts. He told them that because he knew how God looked at the heart, that he was sure that all those who held God in their hearts would be more than happy to come the next Sunday dressed in bib overalls, as he, the pastor would also do. God he said, isn't concerned with whether we attend in a $500 suit, or in bib overalls. He just wants His children to love and honor Him.

In essence, when ever you or I attempt to judge someone, we are calling them a fool for not being Christian in our eyes. We must not fail to heed the warning from Jesus about calling our brother or sister a fool [Matthew 5:22], for again we endanger ourselves.

If you or I get to the point of not just thinking, but believing that we are capable of judging another, then we have assigned ourselves the role of God, and we have also become like the pharisee who exalted himself above the publican and other sinners [Luke 18:10-14].

So, the bottom line is, do not fall into the trap of judging others.

Don't feel so smug, and satisfied in your perception of your own sanctity, that you believe you are capable of deciding who is, and who is not Christian. Only God can read the heart, certainly not you nor me.

A True Personal Story

My mom, from a photo taken in 1993

This is just a personal story that I would like to share with all of you.

My mother, passed away in November of 1995, after a long 4 year battle with rectal/colon cancer. She was first diagnosed with this terrible disease in 1991. After what seemed like success against this disease, it reappeared in the spring of 1995, and became worse day by day. When my mother was told that there was nothing else the doctors could do, she asked that we get in touch with Howard Shockley, a Presbyterian minister whom we came to know during my dad's illness due to a malignant brain tumor. Howard himself had been diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was in his late teens, and he had promised God, that if He would heal him, he would go into the ministry. God heard his prayers, and Howard was healed.

So, my brothers and I contacted Howard, and being the good Christian man that he is, he came to visit my mother, and continued to do so on a regular basis, sometimes coming by as many as 5 days a week. On his first visit, he had decided that he was going to give my mother a Bible verse to memorize, and that he would give her a new one to memorize each week. That first, and as it turned out, only Bible verse, was from Philippians 4:13- "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me."

You would not believe the amount of faith my mother placed in that one verse. It became her all purpose verse, if one can claim such a thing for any one Bible verse. She placed so much faith in it, that Howard later said that it became a blessing for him, and he decided there was no need to bring her any others to learn.

One of the last times that she was in the hospital, she was having a very difficult time being helped in and out of bed. She had weakened to the point, that she did not have the strength to get up without help, and she experienced a good bit of pain from being gotten up, and then helped back into bed. She would be literally exhausted afterward. I was in her room, spending the day there with her, and she knew she they would soon be coming to help her out of the chair, and back into bed. She was dreading it, because she knew how tired it made her, and how much it hurt. She looked at me, and she said, "Steve, pray for me. Pray for God to help me. Ask Him to help me, so that it doesn't hurt, and so that I won't be worn out". So, I prayed, and as I prayed, my mother's eyes were closed, her hands stretched over her face, as she repeated over and over again, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me". Just as we finished our prayer, they came to get her out of the chair, and into bed. They put a strap around her waist, to enable them to help her up. When the time to make the attempt came, she came up out of that chair as if it was nothing at all, and got into that bed with no pain or trouble at all. None! One of her nurses made a comment about how that time it had been so easy, and mom told the nurse, "it was because we prayed".

Just 3 weeks later, my mom had gone into a coma at home, and my two younger brothers, Mike and Randy, were staying at home with us. We would be taking mom to the Solace Center at Mountain Area Hospice the next day, and none of us was looking forward to it as you can imagine, because we all knew mom would be leaving home for the last time.

We had been sitting up talking, sitting up late, in fact. I guess we thought we could ward that time off , keep it from coming too quickly, if we stayed awake rather than sleep. Mike decided he wanted something to read, and he found a book, called “The Bible In My Everyday Life”. It had not been taken down off the bookshelf in many years.

Now, that old book had belonged to an aunt who had died at a very young age. It was written in 1932. She had used it somewhat like a Family Bible, recording births, deaths, and other events in it. Mike handed it to me to show me something that was written in it. After looking at what he wanted me to see, I noticed that in the back of the book, it listed every day of the year, and that it gave a Bible verse for each day. I looked at the Bible verse for each of our family's birthdays, and then decided to look at the verse for the next day, which was November 7. Do you know what that verse was? "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me".

Now, I was a little bit surprised to say the least. I showed it to Mike, and he had a total look of shock on his face as well. I now know, I should not have been surprised. I know that Mike being led to choose this book was no accident, even though some narrow minded people might think it purely coincidence, I know it was purely a blessing. For when we were at a point, when we were sure that all was lost, that it was just us alone, facing this hard time, God was telling us, "I am here. I have not forsaken you. I will be with you, and I will be with your mother".

So, no matter what happens to you, to your loved ones, or to anyone else that you know, remember, God is with us always in everything, and in every way. And remember this verse, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me". I know He strengthened us.

Ex-Catholics....

Did They Ever Know The Faith?

Being a person who works in retail with the public, you meet all kinds of people. Some, who are regular customers even become good friends/ Some are just people you see every day.

Inevitably, among the people you meet, something or another will lead to a talk about faith, and I am not shy about telling folks I am a convert to Catholicism. Some see all Christians as brothers in Christ, and some see Catholics and Protestants in a state of constant opposition as to what is the truth. (To those I say, Jesus Christ is the Truth, and that is all the Truth any of us should be concerning ourselves with.)

Some Protestants are taken aback, when I suggest that they visit a Catholic Church, and find out for themselves if what they have been told by their pastors, neighbors or friends about the Catholic Church is factual. Many, if not most, act as if I had suggested they walk barefoot across a bed of hot coals.

I have heard several ideas of what Catholics believe, where I have had to restrain myself from smirking, if not laughing out loud. For instance, one man, in all seriousness and with sincerity, asked me if I belonged to the branch of Catholics that believes in Jesus Christ, or to the branch of Catholics that doesn't.

So, I try to explain things, and hopefully help them to better understand.

Then on occasion, I come across, someone who will boldly proclaim to me (as well as to others whom I know) that they are an "ex-Catholic" who found a church that believes in the Bible, and where they also found Jesus Christ as their "personal Lord and Savior" at some denomination or another, and then proceed to tell me what is "wrong" with the Catholic Church.

Every time one of the ex-Catholics starts telling me what is "wrong" with the Church, I consistently find that there is not something "wrong" with the Church, but there is something wrong with their understanding of what the Church is, and what she teaches.

One of these is, that they don't “need to confess my sins to a man” but that they confess to Jesus through prayer, and receive forgiveness from Him.

I tell them that Catholics also ask for forgiveness in prayer, and that when we go to confession, we are confessing to Jesus through the priest who is physically before us in Christ's place. Christ hears our confession through the priest, and when the priest gives us absolution, he is following the teaching of Christ from Holy Scripture: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." -- John 20,23.

They will usually follow this with, we just don't need to confess to men. I then tell them that since their church follows the Bible so closely, then they confess their sins to each other? I'll get a strange look usually and I quote James 5,16:"Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much."

The worst one I have ever heard though, was where a self described ex-Catholic told a friend of mine that he stopped being Catholic because “Catholics believe that the Pope is Jesus Christ on earth”. I couldn't keep quiet, and told him no, he had it wrong. Catholics believe that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, he is the visible head of Christ's Church on earth, who acts for and in the place of Christ.

Any way, the thing I keep seeing again and again, seems to answer my question, i.e., “did they ever know the faith?” It is all too apparent that these people were just nominal Catholic's and never understood, nor ever bothered to try to learn about the Church and it's teaching.

I don't want to sound as all knowing, or as “another knows it all convert”, but I am thinking, shouldn't catechesis be a continual, ongoing part of our faith? Not just in the parish, where this should be happening, but, also ideally in the home, and within the community of the faithful as well.

Teaching the faith is like growing a garden. We don't plant the seeds, and then think the job is finished, complete. We plant the seeds, and then we water, fertilize, hoe, weed, and prune, so that we have a garden that grows, becomes stronger, and is fruitful.

After all, we are all called to share the faith, and we all can learn something new as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit as we mature in our faith, and help others to mature in theirs.

Some Good Friday Art By James Tissot

There is a fairly large series of paintings by James Tissot called "The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ". There are quite a few that relate to Good Friday. I am going to post here those paintings that relate  to the gospel readings from the Gospel of John for  Good Friday. I will try to post them in the order the scenes are spoken of in the gospel. But if I get them out of order, please keep in mind it is late, and I am not a spring chicken any longer. They actually are here in there original form if you'd like to see those instead. They begin with the second painting on row 8 of the page there.

I will post them as small here, and you can click each individual image to see the higher resolution full sized image.

The Procession of Judas

The Guards Falling Backwards

The Ear of Malchus

The Tribunal of Annas

Saint Peter and Saint John Follow from Afar

The First Denial of Saint Peter

The Second Denial of Saint Peter

The Third Denial of Peter

The Cock Crowed

Jesus Before Pilate, First Interview

The Scourging On The Front

The Scourging on the Back

The Crowning of Thorns

Behold the Man

Let Him Be Crucified

Jesus Before Pilate, Second Interview

The Judgment on the Gabbatha

Jesus Bearing the Cross

The Garments Divided by Cast Lots

Woman, Behold Thy Son

I Thirst, The Vinegar Given to Jesus

It Is Finished

The Strike of the Lance

The Descent from the Cross

Jesus Carried to the Tomb

Jesus in the Sepulchre

Missal Moment #2: 'Many' vs. 'All'

A video about the new english language translation of the Roman Missal from the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Missal Moment #1 "With Your Spirit"

A video about the new english language translation of the Roman Missal from the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Digital Catholic Bible

There is a free version of the Catholic Bible available for download. It is called the Digital Catholic Bible (DCB).

Here is the information available from the DCB website:

Digital Catholic Bible contains 9 free distributable bible versions:

    * Nova Vulgata (Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio) / VATICAN (Latin)

    * Christian Community Bible / SOBICAIN (English)

    * Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner Revision) / JMC (English)

    * La Bibbia / SOBICAIN (Italian)

    * Biblia Sagrada / SOBICAIN (Portuguese)

    * La Bible Des Communautés Chrétiennes / SOBICAIN (French)

    * El Libro del Pueblo de Dios / SOBICAIN (Spanish)

    * La Biblia Latinoamericana / SOBICAIN (Spanish)

    * La Santa Biblia / SOBICAIN (Spanish)

DCB also offers 4 bible text operations:

    * Read - read a chapter or specific verses of a book.

    * Search - search the bible text for specific text.

    * Query - invoke the bible text directly from a short biblic notation.

    * Compare - compare a chapter of a book from two different bible versions.

DCB supports 5 interface languagues:

    * English

    * Spanish

    * Portuguese

    * French

    * Italian

On their download page, there are also versions available for almost any java-enabled mobile device. You can download one language version for your device.

There is also an Android version that works with Android version 1.6 and higher, and the setup includes all 9 Bible versions.

The PC version works on any version of Windows and in Linux and MacOS under WINE, and includes all 9 Bible versions available in DCB.

You may download DCB by going to: Digital Catholic Bible

The two images on this post are my screenshots of DCB. Both show the first chapter of The Gospel of John.  The one at the top is the Douay-Rheims version in DCB, and the bottom is the Latin version.

Posts For Your Consideration

 

 

There are a few items on “Faith of the Fathers” blogs I’d like to call to your attention if you haven’t seen them  yet.

First, on Favorite Prayers and Scriptures there is “Feast of the Ascension of the Lord” from Father Leonard Goffine’s Devout Instructions.

There is several days’ coverage by the Vatican Information Service on Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic trip to Portugal, including his pilgrimage to Fatima.

Speaking of Fatima, in May of 2006 Marie wrote a good piece on Approved Apparitions about Our Lady of Fatima.

The Daily Mass Readings for Friday, May 14, Saturday, May 15, and Sunday, May 17 are all posted and ready for reading and reflection.

Saint Quote of the Day has some quotations from Saint John Vianney, Saint Epiphanius of Salamis (an Early Church Father), Saint Leopold Mandic, Saint Ignatius of  Laconi, and many more.

World's Oldest Bible Now Online

A 1,600 year old manuscript of the Bible has for at least the last 150 years, been in four separate locations around the world. It is known as “The Codex Sinaiticus”, named after the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai, Egypt. The name 'Codex Sinaiticus' means 'the Sinai Book'. Leaves and fragments of the Codex were taken on three occasions, in 1844, in 1853 and in 1859, so that they could be published. The largest surviving portion of the Codex, comprised of 347 leaves, was purchased from the Soviet government in 1933, and is now held by the British Library. An additional 43 leaves are held at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, and parts of six leaves are held at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. Twelve leaves and forty fragments remain at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, where they were recovered by monks in 1975.

The Codex Sinaiticus was hand-written in Greek by three (possibly four) scribes in the mid-fourth century, around the time of Constantine the Great. The Codex was originally around 1,400 pages long, is now a collection of 800 pages and fragments. The text, written on vellum (high quality parchment made from calfskin, kidskin, or lambskin) and the pages that have survived include the entire New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels, written after Christ’s death by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Half of a copy of the Old Testament is also among the pages that remain. The rest has been lost over time.

The Greek Septuagint in the Codex includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded by Protestants as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach. The two other early Christian texts are an Epistle by an unknown writer claiming to be the Apostle Barnabas, and 'The Shepherd', written by the early second-century Roman writer, Hermas. The number of the books in the New Testament is the same as that in modern Bibles in the West, but the order is different. The Letter to the Hebrews is placed after Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles.

Only one other manuscript of the Christian Bible, the Codex Vaticanus (kept in the Vatican Library in Rome) is of a similarly early date.

In March of 2005, the British Library, the University Library in Leipzig, Germany, the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and the Holy Monastery of Sinai signed a Partnership Agreement “for the conservation, photography, transcription and publication of all surviving pages and fragments of Codex Sinaiticus”.

The organizations from Great Britain, Germany, Russia and Egypt who each owned parts of the 1,600-year-old manuscript, have worked together to publish research into the history of the Codex. During a four-year period, they have transcribed over 650,000 words.

To see this manuscript yourself, and read about the work being done for this great project, go to:

http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/





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