My Christmas Prayer

Dear Father in Heaven
Jesus came from His home in Heaven, to show us the road that we must follow, to take us home with Him when our time on this earth ends. Jesus, the Son of God, became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the same power Rose from the Dead, and defeated sin. I imagine a beautiful baby laying in straw, and a humble manger, the creator of our universe, who came to earth to live and die to bring all men to His kingdom. I pray that I may in turn with deep, trusting Faith in Him, share His Eternal love for me with everyone I meet. This is the gift I ask for this Christmas.
Amen

Honest woman, rest in peace

Honest woman, rest in peace
you told the truth and though it hurt
it hurt you more to love like no one else would dare to.
you cried, in silence and tears transformed the sidewalk
into a bouquete of truth and the kingdom to come
God smiles and presents you now to those who guided you
and the cup, now full overflows to the world still searching

truth has made an honest man of all the men
the one man Jesus Christ who carried truth
was honestly the only one who could carry it all
without the cross, there'd be no pain,
Without the pain, there'd be no anticipation
with that there'd be no knowledge
without knowledge there'd be no existence
without existence there'd be no fact
without facts there'd be no truth,
Without Truth there'd be no Honesty
Without Honesty, Love would have nowhere to rest it's head.
Christ rests His life love truth on your heart,
and you felt the pain with honest love

There is no guilty consience, there is no injustice, there is no corruption
Honest woman, you have preserved the world.

Food: There's Lots Of It

Saint Michael

I've recently been more diligent about saying the Saint Michael Prayer, which goes:


St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Got this version from EWTN http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/michael.htm

I started saying this prayer more regularly due to stress, and noticing myself becoming more frequently worked and agitated to the point that I'd find myself harboring angry thoughts, and on sometimes even blowing up or venting to loved ones about them. Even though I knew I didn't want this to happen, regardless of my will it was incredibly difficult to fight it off at times. I figured that there must some other forces at work here, though not necessarily to blame for my actions, but in sense, cheering me on towards those "Low" moments. So I started trying to make a daily practice of saying the Saint Michael prayer every morning, and every night, and I must say I have been astounded by the effect this prayer has had on my self control. I truly feel that I am no longer cheered on to sin, but more importantly encouraged to control temptation. When the temptations arise, I don't even have to remind myself that I've said the prayer earlier, but I am sometimes surprised when I realize that I've resisted temptation, and then I'll remember that I did say the prayer earlier in the day, and I am very grateful. Sometimes I am also inspired to pray it when I'm on the brink of falling into temptation, and the strength I receive is very real. Of course, I do not always resist, but that is because of my own failings, and lack of cooperation with God's Will.

I also realize that the intercession of Saint Michael helps the symptoms, but does not act as a cure for the cause, and I must now work to conform my free will to God's Grace, through the sacraments, prayer and sacrifice. Saint Michael, I believe helps with the symptoms so that we can more clearly diagnose the cause. Prayer to the Saints and Angels helps us, leading us closer to Christ, and closer to the Truth, Love, Joy and Eternal happiness.

Seperation of Church and Status Quo

I know very ver little about the "Seperation of Church and State," but I plan to start looking in to it more. I found this quote from Thomas Jefferson, off of a Wikipedia page dedicated to this topic.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

I think the founders were naive, as they truly believed in One God, and Christ. I believe they never thought these words would inspire men to remove God from all aspects of our country. Why would they have printed "In God We Trust" on the coins? Who among them protested those words?

Through seperation of Church and state, was their main intention to actually protect both?

Divine Mercy

We must have mercy. Mercy on those who hurt us, hurt others, hurt themselves, need help, those who are lacking, and all of this because Mercy is one of the most powerful characteristics of Love. Love is not selfish, it is not jealous, and all of the things we know about it. We can say the same about Mercy.
It's interesting to think that there is a feast day dedicated to Divine Mercy, but not to "Divine Love," or "Divine Charity." I suppose it it is possible that there is a mistic somewhere in the world right now understanding and being lifted up to those amazing heights. However, someone lifted up to know all of love would probably end up ascending in to Heaven, just like Mary. Perhaps Mercy is more feasable for our minds to comprehend. It is a part of Love that we can actually wrap our minds around and fully embrace, and move beyond the understanding of Mercy in to the infantile comprehension of love (which actually, infantile may be the only true way to love) but we can never know Love completely, until we live with it in Heaven. Mercy actually has limits around it. We can mostly see where it begins and ends. However, I am making it sound like it is a small thing, but it isn't. It requires suffering. Anything that requires someone to offer something up requires suffering, and kind of death to self. Where there is suffering, that is where love and mercy have there kinetic energy, like a spiritual rubber band stretched and ready to explode with love and grace and kindness, or despair and sadness. Wow, it's no wonder that the devil and his minions attack us at such times. Happiness and joy are truly a result of suffering. It's always the result of suffering because it was from the garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were first cast out. Since their sin, they had to toil to earn their first moment of happiness, which probably did not come for a long time, because everything had been given to them prior to that point. Now, their happiness would always come from an element of suffering. We too derive happiness from suffering, even though we may not see it. Somewhere, some comfort that we are looking at, or eating, drinking, has come from the result of some one suffering to give us that pleasure. Sure enough, they have derrived pleasure from the money they earned for their own labor, but also, in their enjoyment at the expense of suffering.
When we have spiritual happiness, and contentment, we also have that contentment, most obviously from Christ's suffering. This is true Mercy. Suffering, no matter how great or little, but knowing, and purely for the sake of bringing happiness and peace to another human being. We can be instruments for bring temporal happiness to someone, but only Christ can bring the Spiritual happiness. Through the Divine Mercy, we appropriately exault the Passion of Christ. For the sake of His sorrowful passion, (suffering) He has Mercy on us and on the Whole World.

Just a Thought - Monastic Prisons

Prisons are also called "Correctional Facilities." I don't know what or how prisons operate to "Correct" people in prison. But I've thought about Monasteries, and how long ago, they were places of prayer for people who saw themselves as truly broken Spiritually, but realized that the only way they could save their own soul, and do penance for their sins was to live a life of completely monastic solace.

I wonder if instead of Godless prisons, there were an order started that was truly a "Correctional Facility" that focused on the soul of the prisoners, and imposed on them monastic rules based on the extreme orders of old.

Just a thought.

to admit ones mistakes, is to embrace the Truth

The reason the Catholic Church has survived for 2,000 years, is basically because it admits its mistakes. oh, and the reason it can recognize mistakes is because it has the Truth. Oh, and the reason it has the Truth is because it was given to us by Jesus, and sustained through the intercession of the Holy Spirit.
The only reason there are branches off of the Catholic church is because people decided that something was wrong, and had to be changed. This may very well have been the case. But they then decided that not matter what, they must stick to their convictions, and never turn back. They must break away from the fold, and make their own start.
The Holy Spirit humiliates it's own child, the Church, and for a good purpose. For example, when Luther broke away, the church realized some of the errors that it was making to cause the up-rise, and then it reminded the failure, which BTW was caused by men, not the Holy Spirit. The Church is always struggling to keep in Truth, and individuals within the church sometimes step outside.
But those who have broken away, need to look back at what they have rejected, and see that some of what they rejected was truth. Holding on to the Truth is like being being a baby cradled by it's mother. When you let go of Truth and reject it, it becomes like a dust speck floating on the breeze, and as difficult to catch back up to. Of course, this is where Grace can help, but we must be open to it. Grace impels us to realize our mistakes, and it makes the Truth larger, and more tangible, and able to grasp, so that once we embrace it again, we ourselves are embraced.
This is the call of ecumenism, to bring all back to the Truth, especially those who have strayed away.

A strange thing happened when Galileo looked through his telescope

So, He noticed that the world didn't revolve around the Earth, so at once, the heresy began. I don't know much about his trial, or how much time he spent in prison, but I do know that people who hate the Catholic Church love to loom this over our heads. In one way, I could see their point if they just had the basic outline of events. However, they are not looking at what makes their critique lasting. Basically, the fact that no where in Catholic Theology, Scripture, Tradition, Old Testament and New, is there any foundational Truth of the faith based on the alignment of the celestial bodies. I think when God said "There should be no strange God's before me," he meant it pretty literally. Everyone worshiped the stars in some, and I'm sure even some of the early "Christians" held on to some of those superstitions, but it never was taught as part of the salvific truth of Christ's passion and death for our salvation.

I think of it this way. Aristotle was greatly renowned for his understanding of Human Philosophy, and who can deny that. Oh yeah, he said some pretty defining things about how the stars worked, and the universe and stuff. The Catholic Church never looked at him as a prophet, but they recognized his wisdom of understanding human nature. Oh, and this probably was all contained on the same manuscript, so it's not like they seperated out all the copies, and chapters at this point in time.

Along comes Galileo, and makes the blanket statement that Aristotle is an idiot, dumb-ox, astrologer and philosopher. (of course this is hypothetical) The church looks at Galileo and says "your wrong", there's great wisdom in this book. Galileo looks at the book, and says "It should be burned as an offering to true wisdom, because in that tome there lies grave scientific error." The Catholic church says, please explain to us what this error is. Galileo replies, "daft Church controlling everything, you just want to look at my data and destroy it, and you won't be able head or tails out of it, because your heads are stuck in the muck of earthly humanitarianism." I know the truth of science and what's beyond. You look at Faith and what you can't see. But I see." The Church sees this guy as a threat and loose canon so they lock him up for a few months.

I don't proclaim any of this as fact, just an amusing narative that may have taken place. Please post a comment, and discuss with me. I will modify it, as the discussion factually begins to develop.

God - "We are clear for takeoff"

I was just thinking about analogies for the Holy Trinity, and it came to mind that the Triune God resembles the Air traffic controller (God the Father), the people at the check-in desk (God the Son), and the pilot (The Holy Spirit). Okay, so real life people in these jobs are far from perfect, but in an ideal world, the analogy would be better.
It makes sense to me, but maybe someone else thinks this is ridiculous, brilliant, or acuse me of intellectual propery theft because this idea was soooo 2001.
Being a youth minister, I find I'm always trying to think of different ways to explain this stuff to highschoolers who either don't care, or don't understand it, so any input would be great.

My first winter in Ohio

 

My first 7 months in Ohio have shown me pretty much every type of weather possible for the state.  Right now I’m looking out the window of my in-laws house – everything is bright white, and there are 4 foot snow drifts from the 30 mph winds.

I don’t have too many images to share yet, but I will post them soon. 

For now, here’s where I am:

Here’s where we hope to be:

It’s hard to see, but it’s the little house in the middle. 

Well, It’s getting late, so I guess that’s all for now…

Later,

Danny