Archive for March, 2014

Reflections for Sunday, March 16, 2014
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Reflections for Sunday, March 16, 2014

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by on Mar 12, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Sunday Reflections
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Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20,22; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Matthew 17:1-9) The Call to Holiness, God’s Design for Our Lives He saved us and called us to a holy life. (2 Timothy 1:9)  St. Paul tells us that we have been called to a holy life. But if […]

Social Media's Double-Edged Sword -- A Lenten Reflection
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Social Media’s Double-Edged Sword — A Lenten Reflection

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by on Mar 12, 2014 in Featured, On Media
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The Lenten season is upon us once more, and like many Christians, in an attempt to honor God’s faithfulness to his Church and in the hopes of deepening my own faith I have decided to engage in a fast of sorts. Inspired by a good friend of mine, I will for the duration of Lent […]

Dancing with the Saints
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Dancing with the Saints

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by on Mar 12, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith
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Epistle Reading:  Jonah 3:1-10 Gospel Luke 11:29 There are a lot of people in the world like Jonah, full of zeal and devotion to their cause.  Many dismiss them as crazy.  Priests are inundated and end up spending copious amounts of time listening to bizarre stories of people who tell stories almost as outlandish as the reading we […]

This is How You Are to Pray
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This is How You Are to Pray

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by on Mar 11, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ
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Jesus says, “This is how you are to pray.” We are, then, blessed with the most beautiful prayer, shared with us by Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Our Father. Today, we are still in the early days of our 2014 Lenten journey. How many of us are asking Jesus to teach us […]

Justice Denied in Peru’s Sterilization Campaign
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Justice Denied in Peru’s Sterilization Campaign

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by on Mar 11, 2014 in Contraception & Abortion, Featured
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Anne Roback Morse also contributed to this article. Fifteen years ago, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, with the strong encouragement of the Clinton administration, ordered a nationwide sterilization campaign.  At least 300,000 women were sterilized by “mobile sterilization teams” on a Chinese model, many under duress.  Some died. PRI sent a team of investigators into the […]

Become Holy This Lent by Being Yourself
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Become Holy This Lent by Being Yourself

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by on Mar 11, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Live in Christ, MyChurchParish.com
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When Catholics talk about Lent, we usually talk about what we are going to change in our lives.  We view our lives as deficient, and in order to improve them, we must either subtract (give something up) or add (take on extra prayers, devotions, etc) to our lives to grow in holiness.  This has been […]

Kidnapped Nuns Set Free in Syria
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Kidnapped Nuns Set Free in Syria

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Featured, International Issues, Those in Need
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Twelve nuns kidnapped by jihadists in Syria last December were set free yesterday (Sunday, March 9th). Patriarch Gregorios III, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, broke the news to a team from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), who had just arrived in Lebanon to visit projects supporting refugees from Syria. The Damascus-based […]

The Unhappy Shotgun Marriage of Abortion and Maternal Health Advocates
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The Unhappy Shotgun Marriage of Abortion and Maternal Health Advocates

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Contraception & Abortion, Featured
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Global health advocates agree the rate of women dying in childbirth worldwide is unacceptably high. Usually, getting help from experienced advocates with political clout would be a boon to any campaign. But a new study finds family planning and abortion advocates have diverted resources and hindered progress in helping women from dying in childbirth. A […]

Why Lent
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Why Lent

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ
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A few thoughts on Lent for 2014…. I need a good Lent…. Because I have an awareness of how undisciplined my life can sometimes be.  I’d like to blame my distractability on my ADD, but in truth it is mostly due to the honed chaos I’ve developed in my life.  I dread nothing more than […]

Book Review: <i>Tiny Blue Lines</i>
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Book Review: Tiny Blue Lines

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Featured, On Books, Parenting
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When Chaunie Marie Brusie faced an unplanned pregnancy in her senior year of college, she didn’t know where to turn for help. Now an obstetric nurse, married mother of three, and founder of TinyBlueLines.com, she is working hard to make sure that other young women have resources to help them cope with this unexpected and […]

Change is in Us
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Change is in Us

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ, MyChurchParish.com
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In a way, the whole message of the Gospel is summarized by the Triduum. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil are themselves paralleled, too, by long swaths of human history. Humanity was in communion with God, and then fell into sin and denial of God, only to have God go very far to […]

Ferial Day
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Ferial Day

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by on Mar 10, 2014 in Saint of the Day
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Poem: "Utopia"
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Poem: “Utopia”

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by on Mar 09, 2014 in Poetry
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Utopia Island where all becomes clear. Solid ground beneath your feet. The only roads are those that offer access. Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs. The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here with branches disentangled since time immemorial. The Tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple, sprouts by the spring called Now I Get […]

Paul in Arabia: The Wilderness of Damascus
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Paul in Arabia: The Wilderness of Damascus

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by on Mar 09, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ, MyChurchParish.com
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At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for 40 days, tempted by the devil.  He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. —Mk 1:12-13 “A veil of thick darkness hangs over Paul’s visit to the Arabia.” [1]  The Reverend George Rawlinson, a 19th-century […]

Follow Him
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Follow Him

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by on Mar 08, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ
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Mass Readings for Saturday, March 8: Isaiah 58:9-14; Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 5:27-32 In today’s first reading from Isaiah he tells us what to do to lead a holy life according to God.  “If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; the light shall become for you like midday; then the […]

The Great Deception
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The Great Deception

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by on Mar 08, 2014 in Columnists, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Sunday Reflections
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As I crossed the great divide of puberty, I formed a vivid image of God.. He was a grumpy old man on a throne with a frown on his face. Every time anyone tried to have a little fun, he’d shout “Thou shalt not!” But to really live and not just exist, you had to […]

FIRST Step Toward America’s Future
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FIRST Step Toward America’s Future

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Education, Featured
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It’s a compelling event — something we all better hope we see more of, if America is to thrive. I speak of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competitions, which will be taking place at various cities across Canada and the U.S. through the first week in April. Teams of […]

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel
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Front Row With Francis: The Meaning of Lent

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Live in Christ
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Pope Francis looked up during his General Audience on Ash Wednesday and ditched the script, putting aside his prepared remarks to question the spectators gathered for the weekly encounter, “I want to ask: Your children, your kids—do they know how to make the sign of the cross? Do your grandchildren know how to make the […]

Five Tips for Helping Children Carry Their Crosses
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Five Tips for Helping Children Carry Their Crosses

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Featured, Parenting, Tips, Tools, Tech
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As Catholic parents we all want to see our children grow in the Faith, overcome their temptations, and ever approach sanctity, but when John and Jane are screaming at each other over who is going to get the stuffed monkey, we might wonder how they are going get there. Rather than telling them to share, […]

Baby Farms
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Baby Farms

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Today’s Daily Mail features an article titled “Wombs for Rent” and praises the surrogacy enterprise as a means of “transforming the lives of poverty-stricken women” in India. India has been a hotspot for commercial surrogacy since the early 2000s, particularly for couples from the UK, Australia, and the United States looking to avoid the costly fees associated with surrogates […]

The Nature of Fasting
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The Nature of Fasting

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Live in Christ
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Reading:  Is 58:1-9; PS 51:3-4, 5-6AB, 18-19 The words of the first reading from Isaiah 58:1-9 are like brilliant beams of light, cutting through any false notions we might have about this season of repentance that we call Lent. Often we tend to think of Lent as a time to share in the suffering of Christ yet when we […]

Ecce Homo
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Ecce Homo

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by on Mar 07, 2014 in Fiction, Fiction, Poetry & Humor
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He is alone in the dream. The stink of the jail cell dissipates and the smell of the seashore plucks at the man’s memory. He stands alone on the seashore. Small waves kiss the shore, like some nervous school girl who knows she shouldn’t but kisses a boy anyway. He thinks of the waves, then […]

Ode to Feminine Genius: What is This Homemaker Stuff, Anyway?
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Ode to Feminine Genius: What is This Homemaker Stuff, Anyway?

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by on Mar 06, 2014 in Featured, Marriage, Parenting, The Feminine Genius, Women
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When we first started hammering out details for this series, I got really excited. Then, I saw the word homemaker used repeatedly. Not really knowing much about the word, I looked up the definition and found: HOME·MAK·ER [hohm-mey-ker] noun 1. a person who manages the household of his or her own family, especially as a principal occupation 2. a person employed to manage a household and do household chores for others, as for the sick or elderly. Origin: 1885–90; home + maker Can be confused: homemaker, housewife (see usage note at housewife). Usage note 1. See housewife. HOUSE·WIFE [hous-wahyf or, usually, huhz-if for 2] noun, plural house·wives [hous-wahyvz] 1. Sometimes Offensive. a married woman who manages her own household, […]

Taking Up Our Cross
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Taking Up Our Cross

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by on Mar 06, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Live in Christ
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A reflection  on the Responsorial Psalm for today (PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 AND 6) and the Gospel (LK 9:22-25) Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Next to the […]