“For us, God is not some abstract hypothesis; He is not some stranger who left the scene after the Big Bang. God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In His words we hear God Himself speaking to us” (Benedict XVI).

“John and Andrew had faith, because they had certainty in a perceptible Presence. When they were there ... seated at His house, toward evening, looking at Him speak, there was a certainty in a perceptible Presence of something exceptional, of the divine in a perceptible Presence...

“Instead of Him with His hair in the wind, instead of watching Him speak with His mouth opening and shutting, He arrives through our presence, which is like ... fragile skin, the fragile masks of something powerful, which is He who lies within” (Luigi Giussani.)

by Mark Shea

G.K. Chesterton once remarked that in America, they have a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and that, in England, they should have a feast to celebrate their departure.

All kidding aside, Chesterton probably was one of the most grateful people who ever lived, because he believed in the grace of God and took nothing for granted. He writes, concerning a shipwreck that had occurred a little earlier:

The news that some Europeans have been wrecked on a desert island is gratifying, in so far as it shows that there are still some desert islands for us to be wrecked on. Moreover, it is also interesting because these, the latest facts, actually support the oldest stories. For instance, superior critics have often sniffed at the labours of Robinson Crusoe, specifically upon the ground that he depended so much upon stores from the sunken wreck. But these actual people shipwrecked a few weeks ago depended entirely upon them; and yet the critics might not have cared for the billet. A few years ago, when physical science was still taken seriously, a very clever boys’ book was written, called “Perseverance Island.” It was written in order to show how “Robinson Crusoe” ought to have been written. In this story, the wrecked man gained practically nothing from the wreck. He made everything out of the brute materials of the island. He was, I think, allowed the advantage of some broken barrels washed up from the wreck with a few metal hoops round them. It would have been rather hard on the poor man to force him to make a copper-mine or a tin-mine. After all, the process of making everything that one wants cannot be carried too far in this world. We have all saved something from the ship. At the very least, there was something that Crusoe could not make on the island; there was something Crusoe was forced to steal from the wreck; I mean Crusoe. That precious bale, in any case, he brought ashore; that special cargo called “R. C.,” at least, did not originate in the island. It was a free import, and not a native manufacture. Crusoe might be driven to make his own trousers on the island. But he was not driven to make his own legs on the island; if that had been his first technical job he might have approached it with a hesitation not unconnected with despair. Even the pessimist when he thinks, if he ever does, must realise that he has something to be thankful for: he owes something to the world, as Crusoe did to the ship. You may regard the universe as a wreck: but at least you have saved something from the wreck.

Chesterton realizes something that we Americans with our myth of the rugged individual often forget: namely, that everything you have, including the hands that hold it, is a gift. Our language, culture, moral values, blood, breath, and bone were deeded to us as sheer gift. You and I did not and could not earn an iota of it. We exist in the midst of a great web of Gift that stretches back through countless generations and across the world because God has made it so. I owe people I have never heard of a debt because there is water in my tap, and electricity in my computer, and food on my table and clothes on my back and words in my mouth, for some great massive labor of ages was necessary to bring me these things that I could not, if my life depended on it, make from scratch with just my native wits.

Small wonder then that our greatest sacrament presents us with the fact of our radical dependence on grace in the word which, being translated, means “Thanksgiving”.

An excerpt taken from Archbishop Chaput

Benedict offers a withering critique of modern notions of “progress” and the practical atheism that infects nearly every developed society, beginning with Europe. For the Pope, the real battle lines in the modern world do not divide Christianity from other religious traditions.

Rather, “In [today's] world, radical secularism stands on one side, and the question of God, in its various forms, stands on the other.” When secular society seeks to reduce progress to material development, to exile God from public life and to ignore humanity's profoundly religious needs, then it starves the human spirit and attacks real human progress, which always has a moral dimension.

Antonio Vivaldi

Here is another great post. Such interesting articles make respect journalism as a discipline.

Catholic thanksgiving

Go here for a good article about thanksgiving.

7 reasons to go to Confession

1. Priestly absolution is an awesome gift that Jesus gave us.
Jesus gave us this Sacrament and wants us to enjoy His grace through it. He told His first priests, the Apostles:

Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven (John 20:22).

Christ gave us this rite of grace and forgiveness because He loves us. It is a divine gift of mercy and love.

2. You are a sinner.
You are a sinner and you need to examine the sinful patterns of your heart and have a priest give you absolution, counsel, and penance. We are often not honest with our hearts and it takes an objective "physician of souls," to help diagnose you spiritually.

3. Confession is a means of grace.
It is not scary, it is peaceful. We get excited over baptisms, weddings, and ordinations. Why not the remedy for our greatest Christian struggle? Why not be excited about Christ's forgiveness being declared by His appointed deputies - the priests of His Church.

4. You may have committed mortal sin.
There is a such thing as mortal sin:

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal. (1 John 5:16)

Mortal sin is deadly and it separates our souls from the pure eternal life that exists within the Blessed Trinity. Contrition and priestly absolution restores our hearts to a position of love toward God and our neighbors.

5. Guilt is unpleasant.
Often Satan weighs us down with guilt. Guilt can be a good thing if we transform it into repentance. Of course, Satan hates this and God and the angels love it. So free yourself from guilt and hear a tangible person with spiritual authority say, "I absolve thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

6. Confession unites you more fully to the Church.
When you make your confession to a priest, you acknowledge that you have sinned not only against God, but against every single other Christian because by your sin, you have lessened the universal witness of every single Christian. You have given the non-believer the excuse that "All Christians are hypocrites." When you go to Confession you acknowledge that you have caused every Christian to suffer by your sins.

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Cor 12:26)

The priest, who represents both God and the Church by his ordination and office receives your repentance and you have the assurance of not only God's forgiveness, but the implicit forgiveness of the entire Church.

7. Receiving the Eucharist becomes even more powerful.
Holy Communion is also one of the Seven Sacraments. When you receive communion you receive the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ our Redeemer. When you confess your sins in a sacramental way, you also have a stronger sacramental union with Christ in the Eucharist. Also, if you are living in mortal sin, you should NEVER receive the Eucharist because you blaspheme Christ and set yourself up for greater judgment and eternal damnation!

Brothers and sisters:
You know how one must imitate us.
For we did not act in a disorderly way among you,
nor did we eat food received free from anyone.
On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day
we worked, so as not to burden any of you.
Not that we do not have the right.
Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you,
so that you might imitate us.
In fact, when we were with you,
we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work,
neither should that one eat.
We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a
disorderly way,
by not keeping busy but minding the business of others.
Such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly
and to eat their own food.

St. John Lateran

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
The anniversary of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, which was erected by the Emperor Constantine in 333, has been observed on this day since the twelfth century. This is the oldest, and ranks first among the four great “patriarchal” basilicas of Rome. The basilica was then, and remains today, the official cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.
Saint Leo the Great restored it around the year 460. This second church lasted for four hundred years and was then burnt down. It was rebuilt by Clement V and John XXII, only to be burnt down once more in 1360, but again rebuilt by Urban V.
In 1376, when the Gregory XI and the papal court returned to Rome after residing for 74 years in Avignon, France, they found the city deserted and the churches almost in ruins. Great works were begun at the Lateran by Martin V and his successors. The palace, however, was never again used by them as a residence. The Vatican, which stands in a drier and much higher location, was chosen in its place. It was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that the church took its present appearance. It’s altar stands alone among all the altars of the Catholic world in being built of wood and not of stone, and enclosing no relics of any kind. The reason for this peculiarity is that it is itself a relic of a most interesting kind, being the actual wooden altar upon which St. Peter is believed to have celebrated Mass during his residence in Rome.
This feast was at first observed only in Rome but later in honor of the basilica, which is called the mother church of Christendom, the celebration was extended to the whole Latin Church. This action was taken as a sign of devotion to and of unity with the Chair of Peter which, as Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “presides over the whole assembly of Christians.” Saint John Lateran remains the official basilica of which all popes are identified with in their title “Bishop of Rome.”

St. Martin of Tours

Preface of the Dedication of a Church

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give You thanks.

Your house is a house of prayer,
and Your presence makes it a place of blessing.
You give us grace upon grace to build the temple of Your Spirit,
creating its beauty from the holiness of our lives.

your house of prayer is also the promise of the Church in heaven.
Here Your love is always at work,
preparing the Church on earth for its heavenly glory
as the sinless bride of Christ,
the joyful mother of a great company of saints.

Now, with the saints and all the angels
we praise You for ever:

Millstones do not make good swimwear

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Be on your guard!
If your brother sins, rebuke him;
and if he repents, forgive him.
And if he wrongs you seven times in one day
and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’
you should forgive him.”

And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

from the Catechism

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

All Saints Day