Patron Saint Draw #30

Sunny – Stephen
Sunny’s husband – Francis of Assisi
Sunny’s family – Joseph, foster father of Jesus

Lisa T. – Peter Julian Eymard

Lola – Raphael

DT – Augustine
SAF – Margaret of Scotland

Steve M – Padre Pio

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Patron Saint Draw #29

Husband of JellyBelly - Solanus Casey

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Tomorrow at noon Pacific (3 Eastern) is your last chance to request a saint for 2010.

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Ecclesia Semper Reformanda

I read this wonderful document tonight. I will read it again in a day or so to pick up what I missed and to savor again the widsom that Bp. Nickless has shared.

As I was reading it I thought - "I want this to be my eulogy."

Picture it...a captive audience being exposed to Truth! People that would never set foot in a Catholic church, people misinformed about true Catholic teaching, angry lapsed Catholics, pagans, protestants, haters of Vatican II - all hearing what Holy Mother Church is really all about!

And Bp. Nickless touches on something that I wrote about long ago (I will dig in the archives later) and that is that pre-Vatican II Catholics were not necessarily "better" Catholics than we are now. They memorized pat answers to catechetical questions and they were respectfully silent at Mass (and they dressed properly too!) but that was no guarantee that there was any love or relationship with Jesus Christ.

We receive and accept the fullness of faith in the Church both objectively
and affectively. Before the Second Vatican Council, our catechesis in the United
States was very strongly formal and aimed at the head. We memorized concise
answers to common questions, and followed the disciplines of the Church because
that was what Catholics did. We knew the answers to "what" and "how," but not
the deeper answer to "why." We fell into a shallow formalism; we did not use the
form for its true end, namely, a deep, personal, intimate relationship with God
through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that transforms our hearts.
After the Council, we swung wildly in the opposite direction: our catechesis
became very strongly affective in order to emphasize the relational aspect. We
tried to mine our experience of God’s love for us, to learn how to love God
deeply, personally, and intimately in return. But without the formal knowledge
of faith, experience alone is not a solid teacher. As a result, two generations
of us now have a very poor knowledge both of the Catholic Faith and of Jesus
Christ. A religious illiteracy and ignorance pervades many sectors of the
Church; it is an open wound in her side. We need a solid, systematic, and
comprehensive catechesis, not eschewing "what" and "how," but answering also
"why," faithful to the entire Deposit of Faith and the Church’s Magisterium,
forming both head and heart.

O come Emmanuel!

Because the "band" didn't play this at Mass this morning....

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Fourteen Flowers of Pardon

Watched this on EWTN last night.

If St. Maria Goretti can forgive her attacker perhaps

I can tolerate my ex-MIL being at the wedding....

I had no plans to watch this, didn't even know it would be on.

I was flicking channels (I rarely watch EWTN these days)

but when I saw this was on I knew I had to watch it.

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Patron Saint Draw #28

Emily - Angela of Foligno

Rebeccab (or mtmom) - Maria Goretti
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Seven

Seven years since I began my journey back to Holy Mother Church.

I am profoundly grateful.

Thank you, Lord.

Angela