God's best Food - Corpus Christi

I went to our 11:15 Mass today since I was scheduled to lector and my wife had the Gospel sermonette for Kids duty at that Mass also. It was a very nice Mass with a great Homily from our Pastor, all about the Eucharist and the Body of Christ, both the bread and us, the Church, we too are the Body of Christ. He had a great line in his homily, saying that the new manna is Jesus' Body and it is "God's best food" - I like the sound of that, we are partaking of God's best food when we receive Jesus' Body and Blood. One of the confirmation/1st communion children was out of town during the scheduled confirmation/1st communion Masses (yes, our parish does the restored order of confirmation and 1st communion on the same day, I am getting used to it by now and I am even liking it, the children seem to always be excited about getting confirmed), so he made his confirmation/ 1st communion today. I really liked that on this feast day, to know that this young boy is receiving Jesus for the first time, it made me realize how special the gift of the Eucharist is for all of those, even those who have partaken of the Body and Blood for years and years. I think it would be great to do this every year, have one child receive their 1st communion on Corpus Christi. I was watching EWTN's Mass today and I saw some girls in communion dresses, I wonder if they had 1st communions at their Mass today also. There also was a procession of the Blessed Sacrament into the Chapel and adoration until the evening Mass; a special treat for us as we only have adoration on First Fridays.

New data shows abortions down during Bush presidency

I have seen numerous articles and letters saying that abortions were increasing in the Bush presidency and was wondering about that. But I just received an email from www.factcheck.org, a non-partisan group that researches claims made by both political parties, that says that abortions are really decreasing during Bush's time in office. The increasing claim was made by a "supposedly pro-life" Christian that works for a progressive Christian web site, but it was based on faulty counting principles. Here is the web page link to the www.factcheck.org
factcheck.org web page

As an aside, I have been reading up on this judicial filibuster fiasco, and I think the compromise was the best a pro-lifer can ask for at this moment as it looked like the liberal Republicans were not going to vote for the removal of the filibuster for the judiciary, so to get at least 3 great judges to be confirmed is a step in the right direction. We will see when it comes time to add a new person to Supreme Court, what happens then. hopefully by then, these liberal Republicans will no longer be part of the Senate :)

Marriage Encounter is a wonderful tool for good marriages

I forgot to mention that my wife and I went to our Marriage Encounter circle meeting last weekend. We did a Marriage Encounter weekend in Feb. 2003 and it consisted mostly of couples from our parish, which was very nice because it was people we meet a lot on the weekends at church and it made becoming a circle after the weekend very easy since most of the couples went to our church already. As they say in the Marriage Encounter brochure, Marriage Encounter is for couples with good marriages that want to make their marriages great. I think Marriage Encounter is the best ministry the Church has for married people, meeting once a month with a circle of couples all striving to be great Catholic couples is very encouraging and helpful to keep your marriage alive, especially if the couple has kids. Here is the link to the national Marriage Encounter web site:
World wide Marriage Encounter

Here is the link to the San Jose/Oakland Marriage Encounter
Oakland/San Jose Marriage Encounter

Pentecost Sunday

I had a very busy Pentecost Sunday. My parish had a liturgical Ministries Fair that day as part of our Time and Talent Stewardship drive that we were having this month. I was in charge of setting it up and being there if anyone had questions after all the morning Masses. So I got to the church hall before the first Mass to set up; it was an early start for a Sunday for me. The Fair went pretty well, we got some sign ups for doing some of the liturgical ministry's work. My parish already has a lot of volunteers and it is a very active parish, but the Church would like to see more of the Sunday only Catholics get involved in helping out and hopefully we can get that participation because then the parish could do a whole lot more. I belong to a Charismatic Catholic prayer group, Mission San Jose Community, that has a prayer meeting on Sunday afternoons, but this Sunday, since it was Pentecost, the beginning of charismatic prayer in the church, our group decided to attend a Pentecost Charismatic Mass nearby instead of have our prayer meeting. The Mass was great, full of praise and worship music and invocations of the Holy Spirit to come down upon us. There were prophecies and healing prayers done at the Mass also and the priest shared his charismatic testimony during his homily, his Pentecost experience as it were. Whenever I go to a charismatic Mass, I get a sense that this is how the early disciples worshipped, using the Gifts of the Holy Spirit when they were received. The Mass was 2 hours long and was a beautiful liturgy.

Catholic Lay Pastor Society

Went to my parish on Wednesday night for the first planning meeting for a new program that we are going to start hopefully. It is called Lay Pastor Society. Trained callers will call all people in the parish to tell them about upcoming events at the parish and to assist those who have a need to communicate wth our Pastor. It was a good meeting and I am excited to be part of this new ministry. Here is the link to the web site that talks about Lay Pastor Society:

http://www.markpriceministries.com

There is a separate web site for Lay Pastor Society:

http://www.laypastorsociety.org/

Mark Price came to our parish a few years ago for our Parish Mission, he portrays bible characters from the time of Jesus and gives a short talk in that characters voice about Jesus and his calling. It was very good and I recommend it to any parish that is looking for a Parish Mission.

Went on Cursillo last weekend - it was great

I went on a Cursillo last weekend and it was great. I highly recommend a Cursillo weekend for any Catholic, it is a great time to energize your faith and your personal walk with Christ. If you don't know of anyone that has taken a Cursillo that can sponsor you, please contact your parish office, they would probably know of someone that can talk to you about Cursillo, which means Short Course in Spanish - it is a short course in Christ with some great talks about following Christ and living your faith. Here is the Cursillo web site for those interested in more information: http://www.natl-cursillo.org/
Cursillo is especially great for people that want an introduction to Christianity or that are seeking a spiritual path for themselves because the talks are easy to understand and are personal witnesses from other men that were in the same position when they went to their Cursillo weekend.