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"Dear young people, you know that Christianity is not an opinion nor does it consist of empty words. Christianity is Christ! It is a Person,a Living Person! To meet Jesus, to love him and make him loved: this is the Christian vocation."
--Pope John Paul II World Youth Day
Q: "Are you Saved?" * * * *
A: "As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)." - Thereselittleflower
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Sep 12, 2005
Sign of Cross Is a Visible "Yes" to Christ, Says Pope
Reflects on Upcoming Liturgical Feast
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 11, 2005 ( Zenit.org).- The sign of the cross should not be a routine gesture, but the pronouncement of a visible "yes" to the love of Christ who died for us, says Benedict XVI.
Before praying the midday Angelus with several thousand pilgrims gathered today at the papal summer residence south of Rome, the Pope reflected on the significance of the liturgical feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated Sept. 14.
In this Year of the Eucharist, the Holy Father invited the faithful to meditate "on the profound and indissoluble bond that unites the Eucharistic celebration with the mystery of the cross."
"Each holy Mass, in fact, actualizes Christ's redeeming sacrifice," Benedict XVI said. "The Eucharist is therefore the memorial of the whole paschal mystery: passion, death, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension to heaven, and the cross is the tangible manifestation of the infinite act of love with which the Son of God has saved man and the world from sin and death."
Thus, the sign of the cross is the "fundamental gesture of the Christian's prayer," the Pope added.
"To make the sign of the cross is to pronounce a visible and public yes to him who died for us and who is risen, to the God who in the humility and weakness of his love is omnipotent, stronger than all the power and intelligence of the world," the Bishop of Rome said.
Marian appeal
The cross, he continued to underline, "is not a passing incident, but the passage through which Christ entered into his glory and reconciled the whole of humanity, overcoming all enmity."
For this reason, together with the liturgy, the Pope exhorted believers to raise this supplication: "Stay with us, Lord, who by your holy cross have redeemed the world!"
Benedict XVI dedicated the last words of his meditation to the Blessed Virgin Mary: "When we receive holy Communion we also, as Mary and united to her, embrace the wood, which Jesus with his love has transformed into instrument of salvation, and pronounce our 'Amen,' our 'yes' to crucified and risen love."
ZE05091106 Posted at 12:30 am by Bigsierra
Sep 5, 2005
The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.
– Pope St. Gregory the Great Posted at 09:13 pm by Bigsierra
Aug 22, 2005
Post about discouragement from ShannonMcCatholic on OBOB
http://www.christianforums.com/t2007006-the-coolest-thing-happened-today-at-mass.html&page=2
You should know- how I struggle with sins against hope-- discouragement is something I have to be ever vigilant about. Like now- I really blew it yelling at my kids- and while I know God has forgiven me in my true sorrow- I feel so outside of His love. But really I am always a wretch unworthy of His love-- but He gives it freely anyway....
Through confession, I realized that right now I am so totally plagued by the overwhelming sense of unloveability- it has oppressed me for the last 20 years... and there is all this stuff happening right now- that just brings that all to the surface--- and it is horrible- and painful and lonely-- it is the Agony. ANd I am praying merely that I can just stand and not run away- to just make it through...I feel like God has abandoned me, thoough He has been sending consolations in prayer (which is not a regular thing for me, a rather desert traveler). But I know I also just need to exist right now- not in the past or the future- but just get through this one moment. ANd if I can do that, and be mindful of that all day- and live each moment with virtue- I know I'll be alright.
I am a mess right now- I made my general confession aboout 6 weeks ago-- and since then my anger has been out of control- it's like my wretchedness has no other dissipation and is all channeled through this one festering sore. I've been having to go to confession like 2-3 times a week. There have been days when I have been unable to receive Holy Communion, because of the state of my soul.
I am a wreck-- but I am convinced that Jesus' Mercy is so much bigger than all of my sin, and that He desperately desires and wants my soul to be holy. I want to be a saint- and I know that to do that I need the sacraments, and I have got to pray everyday-- for that is the only way I can learn to be small enough to let CHrist be seen rather tahan me...which is still a long, long way off.
Don't lose heart!! Just keep pushing onward- imperfectly!! If you can read IBelieve in Love by Fr. Jean CJ D'elbee-- you will be flying high afterwards- it is such anawesome reminder of the immensity of the love Jesus has for us, and that we should never fail to approach Him boldly- praticuularly when we have really messed up. FOr Jesus came to be our SAviour, and when we fling ourselves to his breast and ask Him to save us-- HE is filled with compassion and joy- for that is what He came to do.....
Lord's peace my friend- one moment at a time!! Posted at 12:12 am by Bigsierra
Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI, at WYD
"Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you. I repeat today what I said at the beginning of my Pontificate: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great."
"In these days I encourage you to commit yourselves without reserve to serving Christ, whatever the cost."
Through you, may other young people everywhere come to recognize in Christ the true answer to their deepest aspirations, and may they open their hearts to receive the Word of God Incarnate, who died and rose from the dead for the salvation of the world.
“Make Jesus number one in your life. Then everything will be OK.” - to 12 youth that Pope Benedict XVI had breakfast with
“Today it is your task to live and breathe the Church’s universality. Let yourselves be inflamed by the fire of the Spirit, so that a new Pentecost will renew your hearts.”
"the secret of holiness is friendship with Christ and faithful obedience to his will."
"This means that we are not constructing a private God, a private Jesus, but that we believe and worship the Jesus who is manifested to us by the sacred Scriptures and who reveals himself to be alive in the great procession of the faithful called the Church, always alongside us and always before us. There is much that could be criticized in the Church. We know this and the Lord himself told us so: It is a net with good fish and bad fish, a field with wheat and darnel."
Posted at 12:09 am by Bigsierra
Aug 21, 2005
"Everyone's Way of the Cross"
Posted at 11:24 pm by Bigsierra
World Youth Day (WYD) Has Concluded
Here is a link to the official site:
http://www.wjt2005.de/index.php?id=6&si=1
The Marienfeld from above
Pope Benedict XVI at the Vigil on the Marienfeld
Dear Young People,
I am delighted to meet you here in Cologne on the banks of the Rhine! You have come from various parts of Germany, Europe and the rest of the world as pilgrims in the footsteps of the Magi. Following their route, you too want to find Jesus. Like them, you have begun this journey in order to contemplate, both personally and with others, the face of God revealed by the Child in the manger. Like yourselves, I too have set out to join you in kneeling before the consecrated white Host in which the eyes of faith recognize the real presence of the Saviour of the world. Together, we will continue to meditate on the theme of this World Youth Day: “We Have Come To Worship Him” (Mt 2:2).
With great joy I welcome you, dear young people. You have come here from near and far, walking the streets of the world and the pathways of life. My particular greeting goes to those who, like the Magi, have come from the East. You are the representatives of so many of our brothers and sisters who are waiting, without realizing it, for the star to rise in their skies and lead them to Christ, Light of the Nations, in whom they will find the fullest response to their hearts’ deepest desires. I also greet with affection those among you who have not been baptized, and those of you who do not yet know Christ or have not yet found a home in his Church. Pope John Paul II had invited you in particular to come to this gathering; I thank you for deciding to come to Cologne. Some of you might perhaps describe your adolescence in the words with which Edith Stein, who later lived in the Carmel in Cologne, described her own: “I consciously and deliberately lost the habit of praying”. During these days, you can once again have a moving experience of prayer as dialogue with God, the God who we know loves us and whom we in turn wish to love. To all of you I appeal: Open wide your hearts to God! Let yourselves be surprised by Christ! Let him have “the right of free speech” during these days! Open the doors of your freedom to his merciful love! Share your joys and pains with Christ, and let him enlighten your minds with his light and touch your hearts with his grace. In these days blessed with sharing and joy, may you have a liberating experience of the Church as the place where God’s merciful love reaches out to all people. In the Church and through the Church you will meet Christ, who is waiting for you.
Today, as I arrived in Cologne to take part with you in the Twentieth World Youth Day, I naturally recall with deep gratitude the Servant of God so greatly loved by us all, Pope John Paul II, who had the inspired idea of calling young people from all over the world to join in celebrating Christ, the one Redeemer of the human race. Thanks to the profound dialogue which developed over more than twenty years between the Pope and young people, many of them were able to deepen their faith, forge bonds of communion, develop a love for the Good News of salvation in Christ and a desire to proclaim it throughout the world. That great Pope understood the challenges faced by young people today and, as a sign of his trust in them, he did not hesitate to spur them on to be courageous heralds of the Gospel and intrepid builders of the civilization of truth, love and peace.
Today it is my turn to take up this extraordinary spiritual legacy bequeathed to us by Pope John Paul II. He loved you – you realized that and you returned his love with all your youthful enthusiasm. Now all of us together have to put his teaching into practice. It is this commitment which has brought us here to Cologne, as pilgrims in the footsteps of the Magi. According to tradition, the names of the Magi in Greek were Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar. Matthew, in his Gospel, tells of the question which burned in the hearts of the Magi: “Where is the infant king of the Jews?” (Mt 2:2). It was in order to search for him that they set out on the long journey to Jerusalem. This was why they withstood hardships and sacrifices, and never yielded to discouragement or the temptation to give up and go home. Now that they were close to their goal, they had no other question than this. We too have come to Cologne because in our hearts we have the same urgent question that prompted the Magi from the East to set out on their journey, even if it is differently expressed. It is true that today we are no longer looking for a king, but we are concerned for the state of the world and we are asking: “Where do I find standards to live by, what are the criteria that govern responsible co-operation in building the present and the future of our world? On whom can I rely? To whom shall I entrust myself? Where is the One who can offer me the response capable of satisfying my heart’s deepest desires?” The fact that we ask questions like these means that we realize our journey is not over until we meet the One who has the power to establish that universal Kingdom of justice and peace to which all people aspire but which they are unable to build by themselves. Asking such questions also means searching for Someone who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and who therefore can offer a certainty so solid that we can live for it and, if need be, even die for it.
Dear friends, when questions like these appear on the horizon of life, we must be able to make the necessary choices. It is like finding ourselves at a crossroads: which direction do we take? The one prompted by the passions or the one indicated by the star which shines in your conscience? The Magi heard the answer: “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet” (Mt 2:5), and, enlightened by these words, they chose to press forward to the very end. From Jerusalem they went on to Bethlehem. In other words, they went from the word which showed them where to find the King of the Jews whom they were seeking, all the way to the end, to an encounter with the King who was at the same time the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Those words are also spoken for us. We too have a choice to make. If we think about it, this is precisely our experience when we share in the Eucharist. For in every Mass the liturgy of the Word introduces us to our participation in the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ and hence introduces us to the Eucharistic Meal, to union with Christ. Present on the altar is the One whom the Magi saw lying in the manger: Christ, the living Bread who came down from heaven to give life to the world, the true Lamb who gives his own life for the salvation of humanity. Enlightened by the Word, it is in Bethlehem – the “House of Bread” – that we can always encounter the inconceivable greatness of a God who humbled himself even to appearing in a manger, to giving himself as food on the altar.
We can imagine the awe which the Magi experienced before the Child in swaddling clothes. Only faith enabled them to recognize in the face of that Child the King whom they were seeking, the God to whom the star had guided them. In him, crossing the abyss between the finite and the infinite, the visible and the invisible, the Eternal entered time, the Mystery became known by entrusting himself to us in the frail body of a small child. “The Magi are filled with awe by what they see; heaven on earth and earth in heaven; man in God and God in man; they see enclosed in a tiny body the One whom the entire world cannot contain” (Saint Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 160, No. 2). In these days, during this “Year of the Eucharist”, we will turn with the same awe to Christ present in the Tabernacle of mercy, in the Sacrament of the Altar. Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you. I repeat today what I said at the beginning of my Pontificate: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation” (Homily at the Mass of Inauguration, 24 April 2005). Be completely convinced of this: Christ takes from you nothing that is beautiful and great, but brings everything to perfection for the glory of God, the happiness of men and women, and the salvation of the world.
In these days I encourage you to commit yourselves without reserve to serving Christ, whatever the cost. The encounter with Jesus Christ will allow you to experience in your hearts the joy of his living and life-giving presence, and enable you to bear witness to it before others. Let your presence in this city be the first sign and proclamation of the Gospel, thanks to the witness of your actions and your joy. Let us raise our hearts in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Father for the many blessings he has given us and for the gift of faith which we will celebrate together, making it manifest to the world from this land in the heart of Europe, a Europe which owes so much to the Gospel and its witnesses down the centuries.
And now I shall go as a pilgrim to the Cathedral of Cologne, to venerate the relics of the holy Magi who left everything to follow the star which was guiding them to the Saviour of the human race. You too, dear young people, have already had, or will have, the opportunity to make the same pilgrimage. These relics are only the poor and frail sign of what those men were and what they experienced so many centuries ago. The relics direct us towards God himself: it is he who, by the power of his grace, grants to weak human beings the courage to bear witness to him before the world. By inviting us to venerate the mortal remains of the martyrs and saints, the Church does not forget that, in the end, these are indeed just human bones, but they are bones that belonged to individuals touched by the transcendent power of God. The relics of the saints are traces of that invisible but real presence which sheds light upon the shadows of the world and reveals the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst. They cry out with us and for us: “Maranatha!” – “Come Lord Jesus!” My dear friends, I make these words my farewell, and I invite you to the Saturday evening Vigil. I shall see you then!
Posted at 10:16 pm by Bigsierra
Aug 16, 2005
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Review
http://www.decentfilms.com/reviews/charlieandthechocolatefactory.html
Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is enough to make any fan of Roald Dahl’s most beloved novel cry — with delight at all the film gets so magically right, and with frustration that in spite of that the film is still nearly ruined by Burton’s obsessions and a spectacularly miscalculated performance by star Johnny Depp.
No one but Burton could possibly have so perfectly nailed Dahl’s blend of whimsical fantasy and withering comeuppance, or the Dickensian glee and extravagance of its morality-play tableau, with abject poverty and decency lavishly rewarded while excess and surfeit and decadence are mercilessly punished.
Posted at 10:38 pm by Bigsierra
Comic Book Character's Faith
Check this site out. It has more in the list, but thought this might give you an idea -
http://www.adherents.com/lit/adh_comics.html
Superheroes
- Superman (Clark Ken/Jor-El) - Protestant
- Batman (Bruce Wayne) - Catholic
- Spider-Man (Peter Parker) - Protestant
- Daredevil (Matt Murdock) - Catholic
- Captain America (Steve Rogers) - Protestant
- Elektra (Elektra Natchios) - Greek Orthodox (clearly depicted at the funeral of her father in the 2004 movie; according to some sources she is depicted as Catholic in the comics)
- Wolvertine (Logan) - atheist
- The Punisher (Frank Castle) - Catholic (former Catholic seminary student)
- Robin/Nightwing (Dick Grayson) - Christianity (specific denomination not identified, but probably Evangelical Protestant)
The Thing (Ben Grimm) - Jewish
Posted at 07:52 pm by Bigsierra
Aug 14, 2005
Posted at 12:01 am by Bigsierra
Aug 13, 2005
Link to Jason/Geocajun's Blog Added
Posted at 09:45 pm by Bigsierra
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