Eric's Catholic Blog

Great homily from visiting priest and parish priest

2010-06-04T23:45:00.001-07:00

We had a visiting priest at our parish last week and he gave a great homily about the Trinity. His point was that "three" points to true love. Just as Man A finds woman B and create child C, there is God the Father working with God the son and God the Holy Spirit. I thought this was great and I had never heard it that way before, but after an internet search, I found most of the priest's homily on a homily web site. Here is some of that homily from the web:

True love requires three partners. You remember the old saying "Two is company, three is a crowd." The Trinity shows us that three is community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition we see that when a man A is in love he looks for a woman B so that together they can produce a baby C. Father, mother and child — love when it becomes complete becomes a trinity. Over and above that, each one of us becomes fully human only when we are in relationship with God and in relationship with others. In that way our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. Then we discover that the I-and-I principle preached by Bob Marley and practised by the society at large leaves much to be desired. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity challenges us to adopt rather an I-and-God-and-neighbour principle. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people. May the grace of the Holy Trinity help us to banish all traces of selfishness in our lives and to live in love of God and of neighbour.

Also, I went to Mass on Memorial day and the priest did a great job connecting Jesus' and Mary's sacrifice and the sacrifice that the men and women in our military did for our freedom, their lives. Jesus died for our freedom, freedom from sin and the devil. Mary gave up her normal life to be the mother of God, a very big sacrifice if you think about it especially after she realizes that Jesus will die for us all. We all need to remember the sacrifices of the fallen soldiers and thank them by praying for all the soldiers who have recently died for us, that they will have a short purgatory and final stop in heaven. But we also need to remember that Jesus and Mary call all of us to sacrifice our lives to be one with God and to show true love to all - the three way love of God - I - neighbor from Sunday's homily.

My daughter's bible play performances were a hit!

2008-02-25T01:29:00.000-08:00

My oldest daughter has just finished her latest acting performances. Our parish put on a bible adventures musical performance over the weekend and my daughter was in all 3 short plays. The 3 plays were "The bible in 15 minutes", "two by two" (story of Noah), and "Moses and his journey to the promised land". All 3 were done very well especially the first one which is narrated by two performers and mimed by 4 performers - who act as bible characters from Adam and Eve to John the Evangelist and many others in between. It is done by Melinda Cousins, you can google her and find the play - it is online. Our church is blessed to have a retired musical director who has been willing the last 4 years to spend numerous hours for 4 months getting the kids prepared for a big musical performance - the last two plays were Narnia the Musical and Godspell Jr. The bible plays were great because they reminded us of all the bible characters and their role in God's plan for us - whether it was showing the build up to Jesus in the Bible in 15 Minutes or the rainbow promise in "Two by Two" or the passover story of Moses that prefigures Jesus and his sacrifice for us so we can get to the Promised Land - Heaven. We are in the middle of Lent and it is good to focus on the sacrifices of Jesus for us, so we can sacrifice (not for Jesus, but for others so we can be like Jesus).
I was and am very proud of my daughter and her performance. I am amazed at her talent in drama since I am very shy and would have a hard time doing that (would get too nervous, I am a ham and that is probably what my daughter has picked up, but I do that in small crowds). I remember trying to act in school and I either messed up the timing of my lines or got too frustrated with criticism from the director. We each have our talents and strengths and we need to find them and use them for the greater glory of God. I did help quite a bit behind the scenes for the show so I feel I was a help in that regard.

God bless you all this Lenten season and the upcoming Easter season. I would encourage all of you to participate in any lenten activities in your parish - even if you don't want to, a little sacrifice won't hurt you and your attendance will definitely encourage the people running these activities. Our parish dropped our Friday Lenten soup suppers because the attendance was bad and I am sad about that, it was a good sacrifice to have soup instead of a big meal and to do it with others.

Updates from Eric

2007-11-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything in a while because I got burned out trying to publish interesting things. Also, I wanted to have comments open but kept on getting SPAM comments, so I am now moderating comments. I have two interesting things I have done lately to blog about:

1) My daughter's Catholic youth group were given tickets to see Chris Tomlin in concert in Fresno, a 3 hour drive from San Jose on a Saturday and my wife and I decided that I should be a chaperone to make sure my daughter would be safe there. The donor also paid for a nice bus to bring us there (it even had a bathroom, though I used it on the way back and it is a little scary in there with the bus bouncing up and down and sideways). The concert was awesome, Chris Tomlin is a great Christian singer/performer/songwriter and the concert was in a small old theater and we were in the balcony and the whole balcony was moving up and down because of the people dancing and clapping. Chris is famous for his praise and worship songs and it was great to see a whole theater full of Christians praising God and Jesus. Our parish has LifeTeen and they play his music a lot, I talked with the Lifeteen music director and he says that Chris Tomlin is one of his favorite Christian musician - and of course the Life Teen music director was at the concert with us. My daughter loved the concert too and I tried to give her and her friends some space but she enjoyed being there with her dad.

2) My same daughter's Catholic school always has a All Saints day Saints parade and Mass on Nov. 1st and this year the school got so big that they had to rent out a nearby community theater to have the Mass. It must have been strange for people driving around there to see a parade of kids dressed up as all types of religious men and women ( there was quite a few priests, bishops and nuns marching in the parade). I think it is great that the school has them dress up in Saints costumes and not halloween costumes (her school doesn't recognize halloween while my other daughter's Catholic school has a halloween parade and carnival and then a Mass on Nov. 1st for All Saints day.

I hope to blog soon on the Pope's new encyclical that should be coming out today. I pray that I don't get too convicted of things I do in my life (or don't do) as like with the last encyclical on Love. Have a blessed Advent everyone and let us all try not to get too wrapped (pun intended) up in the crazy Christmas hysteria during our time of advent - waiting and watching for Jesus to come ( and come again in glory).

Silly Eric facts

2007-02-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

I was tagged last July to do one of those blogger lists things and I didn't even realize it until I googled my blog page and found that Shannon had tagged me -
So since I was tagged, I will do the list - 5 silly facts about yourself

1. I love Martial Arts movies and TV shows, Kung Fu - The TV show is still my favorite, but I love Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and the Iron Monkey. I think Kung Fu was a very Catholic type of show, Caine almost never used his Martial Arts training for evil and he was always there to help out the "little guy" whether it was another chinese person or a poor woman being forced to sell her land.

2. Live and Let Die is still my favorite Bond movie and I think it is because it was the first one I saw or the first one that came out at the theaters that I saw. I love the boat chase scene in that one and I love the song. The movie isn't very Catholic except that Bond of course beats the bad guys, good triumph over evil.

3. I am very competitive on the highway, I will always speed up to my maximum speed limit for a street if given the opportunity and I will pass slower cars if they do not let me get to my max speed. I once told my family that the 3 lanes on the freeway really have three different speed limits, right hand lane is 55, middle lane is 65 and fast lane is 75 - but that is when the speed limit was 55. I am trying to be less competitive on the road but it is hard but I know Jesus would want me to be more courteous.

4. I act like a kid whenever I see snow (which isn't often since I live in San Jose now) - whenever I have been to the snow (Lake Tahoe and such), I always want to find a sled run or make one and spend some time sled riding. One time I was at Tahoe, there was a big pile of snow that had become solid, so I built an igloo - or tried to at least, I don't think I quite could fit into it at my age, I was 32 at the time. I guess this fact is because I live in Upstate New York during the blizzards of 1970s when I was 8 - 13 years of age, so I had plenty of snow at the prime sledding ages and also plenty of hills to sled down also.

5. I have a hard time remembering Catholic prayers, especially long ones, but if someone else is saying them with me, I can remember each phrase with only one syllable. Examples of this are the creeds and the Hail Holy Queen prayer of the rosary. Star Spangled Banner is the same way for me. Not sure why I don't have these prayers memorized so well I can just ramble them off.

I will not be tagging any since this list is pretty old by now. If anyone wants to do it, feel free.

Walk for Life San Francisco Jan. 20, 2007

2007-01-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

I did the Walk for Life in San Francisco on Saturday (my daughter and I walked at the first one in 2005) and I was very happy to see such a big group of walkers from all over the West Coast. I got there by bus this year and I have to say that is definitely the way to go - the seats were comfortable, I didn't have to fight the San Fran traffic or try to find a parking spot anywhere in San Francisco. We said a rosary on the way up and got dropped off right at the rally point at the beginning of the walk. I wanted to find the EWTN stage as I heard they were going to be broadcasting live and wanted to see that - I found out the stage was in the perfect spot to see the speakers also so I stayed there and lo and behold after seeing the EWTN coverage, I saw myself about 4 times behind Fr. Mary Francis when he was talking with the guests they had (I had a red shirt on and a green jacket if anyone is interested :) The speakers were very good especially Fr. Frank Pavone and the minister who has been to the Walk every year so far. Surprisingly, my daughters' teacher received a pro-life award at the beginning of the rally.

Right before the speakers ended, I walked around to find my friends who brought their 4 kids with them. I had walked with them in the 2005 Walk also. Just like last time, they tell us to start and there was a big bottleneck and we waited 20 minutes before we got onto the Embarcadero. The one bonus of this Walk is that the route they picked is very beautiful and also goes by most of the big San Francisco sites, like the Ferry building, Coit Tower, Pier 39, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghiradelli Square, Ft. Mason and at the end - a beautiful view of the Golden Gate bridge. The weather this year was perfect, sunny and calm, I took both of my jackets off (you can never tell what the weather will be in San Francisco - if it was windy, it would be downright cold) and walked without them for the whole time. There were a lot less Pro-choice counter protesters this year than there was in 2005 - I heard the big pro-choice groups decided not to organize protests this year.

There were lot more pro-life walkers this year definitely, I bet there was at least 20,ooo walkers this year. One thing I noticed was that there were lot less confrontations between pro-lifers and pro-choicers this year which is good, because the Walk is suppose to be a silent prayerful walk to demonstrate our opposition to abortion, not our opposition to pro-choicers. I was glad to see a lot of priests, seminarians and religious sisters on the walk this year - unfortunately, the protesters would spot them and say mean things to them (which I won't repeat here). The end of the walk was different, a different route was taken in which we stayed on the roads all the way into the Marina Green which is the end of the Walk. In 2005, we walked on a path and then thru the grass to get to the Green. Also, near Pier 39, they had the walkers walk in the middle of the road in the trolley section so we were further from the sidewalk there - which was different than 2005 - I guess they wanted us to be more separated from the crowd of tourists and protesters.

At the end of the walk, I got some food there and then walked to my bus and then we drove home (the traffic trying to get out of San Fran was bad, it must have taken us 30 minutes to drive 10 miles on Van Ness Avenue). One other thing about the bus is I got to see some other San Fran landmarks on the drive there and back, namely AT&T park where the Giants play, the Bay Bridge, the opera house, and symphony hall - I forgot to look across the street to see City Hall. As you can tell, I love the sites of San Francisco, but not the traffic or the parking. And I saw all this without having to climb any of the big hills :)

I pray that these walks and marches will change the hearts of people or at least make them think more about what abortions does to our society. We don't need abortions in this country, there are plenty of people looking to adopt and we also need to be more careful and abstain until marriage.

Charismatic Sunday - that is what it should have been called

2007-01-15T01:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday should have been called Charismatic Sunday due to the second reading being the list of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit - the ones that are emphasized by the Charismatic Renewal. I belong to a Charismatic Renewal prayer group and I just love it when the Church uses the Corinthians readings so I can tell people that yes, the Church still believes in these gifts. It was funny though that two priests who were giving homilies today - both talked about how we are given gifts from God but they didn't say the gifts were the charismatic gifts like speaking in tongues or interpretations of tongues, they talked about healing (specifically how forgiving is part of healing) and talked about music and speaking in public (I went to two Masses today due to a baptism of a friend's baby and the end of retreat Mass for my daughter and the middle schoolers that went). I went to the prayer meeting today and we had a Charismatic Renewal speaker who reminded us that Pope John Paul II was very open to the Charismatic Renewal as was the US Catholic Bishops who wrote a paper called "Grace for a new Springtime". These gifts of the Holy Spirit are still available to all who are open to them. God bless.

Symbolism in Narnia the musical is thought-provoking

2006-12-17T18:32:00.000-08:00

My duaghter just performed in the play, Narnia, a musical based on the book, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. It was done by kids at my parish church and it was very good. One thing that stood out for me was that the play was written to have the professor, Father Christmas and Aslan done by the same actor - this is symbolism that is thought-provoking. All three characters are great role models, the professor for taking the kids in, Father Christmas for being generous and giving gifts, and of course, Aslan for what he does (don't want to spoil the story for anyone). It seems like it is saying that we can't be Aslan but we can be the same as him by doing Christian acts of charity (what you do for the least of my brothers, you do unto me). I also like the fact that the leader of the children is named Peter - Christ gives the keys to the kingdom to Peter and Aslan gives the kingdom of Narnia to Peter also - a very good Catholic imagery. It was a very nice commentary on Catholic teachings done in an entertaining way. It would be great to have more of these types of productions.

White Feast instead of Halloween

2006-11-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

I have seen a couple of articles about the new initiative in the country of Chile to discourage Trick or treating on Halloween and replace it with a new tradition of the White Feast. The White Feast incorporates the custom of kids going door to door but instead of dressing up as evil beings like witches and vampires, the kids dress up as positive characters and then say "Sweets for Graces" instead of "trick or treat". Then, because it wouldn't be good for the kids to get anything for nothing, the kids would give a grace when receiving the treat - a grace could be a short speech, a short skit, a drawing, a clean joke or prayer. I really like this new tradition and would love to see this come to America. I think one way it may work is if the people that approve of this new custom put out some special symbol on their door so that parents just looking for White Feast households can spot them quickly, I was thinking a white ribbon on the door would be good. These White Feast households would give treats to both trick or treaters and Sweets for Graces in the beginning as the transition takes hold. Hopefully some influential organizations will put out the call to start this tradition in the USA. Now all we need to do is come up with a new tradition for the adults who are the ones who have spoiled Halloween with their indulgent and hedonistic celebrations and with their over the top decorations that glorify evil and fear.
Here is a news link to EWTN on the White feast

The rich man's Gospel reading seen in a new light

2006-10-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

At the prayer meeting I went to last week ( oct. 15th) - we were contemplating the Gospel reading of the day, the one where the rich man came to Jesus and said he followed all the commandments but still wanted to know what else he should do - and Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and follow him. We got some revelations at that prayer meeting that what Jesus was really asking the man was to empty himself of all his cares and struggles and "idols" (since the man went away sad because of his many possessions, we can say that he was caught up in materialism and was filled with the need to have stuff and use stuff), it wasn't really riches that were the problem, it was the fact that his riches were crowding out God. So Jesus asked him to remove the riches that were crowding out God and follow Jesus, who would fill his heart with love of God, not love of riches. We all need to examine ourselves and see what crowds Jesus out of our lives, is it materialism, is it lust, fame, power, hatred, anger, jealousy or bitterness?? We need to ask Jesus to forgive us for crowding him out and ask him back into our hearts, to live for Jesus not for other reasons. We can live out the commandments but if our minds and hearts are on other things other than Jesus, we are not living a Christian life and we are not receiving the gifts that Jesus can give us.

Went to a great Catholic play last night, Viva Cristo Rey

2006-10-23T00:23:00.000-07:00

I went to see a Catholic play last night, Viva Cristo Rey, the Story of Fr. Miguel Pro. It was very good - it shows the bravery of not only Blessed Miguel Pro during the Mexican period of Anti-Catholic persecution of the early 20th Century but also the bravery of his relatives and all the Catholic lay people that helped hid the priests and keep the Catholic faith alive in Mexico during this terrible time. The group putting this play on is called Quo Vadis and they have done numerous plays on not so famous saints and Catholic heroes such as Pearl of York, St. Margaret of Castello and others.
Here is a link to the play's web page - Viva Cristo Rey
I saw the last performance of the play ( it was only shown 11 times over 3 weekends). The play focused on Fr. Miguel's time in Mexico right before he was killed by the firing squad for being a Catholic priest in a country where religious worship was illegal. Blessed Miguel Pro is a favorite of Northern California also because he lived in Los Gatos, California (near San Jose ) for a short time because of the Mexican persecution.
Blessed Miguel Pro needs only one more miracle to help him be canonized a Catholic Saint. We can all pray for that.

Here is another great web site that has numerous references to Blessed Miguel Pro:
Blessed Miguel Pro's home page

2996 tribute to Gerard (Jerry) Nevins

2006-09-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Gerard T. Nevins

This is a tribute to Gerard Nevins, a Rescue FDNY Fire Fighter and a Catholic man who died on Sept. 11, 2001 in one of the World Trade Center buildings. He was 46 years old. This tribute is part of the 2996 project to honor every Person who died due to the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Gerard Nevins, called Jerry by his friends and family, was an outstanding and highly decorated fire fighter, he had just recently won the Firemen of the year award and was part of the elite Rescue 1 team. As Jerry would say to those who asked, "Firemen rescue people, Rescue Firemen rescue Firemen".

He was married to Marie for 20 years and father to Daniel and Andrew, who were 7 years old and 5 years old at the time of his death. He was a wonderful husband and father who lived in the country, Campbell Hall, NY, with his family. He owned a small farm in the back of this country house and raised pigs, goats and chickens and sold fresh eggs. He was also a great Godfather to Eddie and enjoyed spending time with his extended family.

He was fun-loving and had a mischievous humor that attracted people to him. He had many friends as was evident at the packed church for his memorial at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Washingtonville on Oct. 6, 2001. Nearly 1000 people attended the service.

He was one of 5 firemen who were killed that 9/11 day from the Washingtonville area and there is a monument to the Washingtonville 5 in the middle of town. He had always wanted to be a firemen and especially wanted to work for the NYC fire department just like his hero and dad, Patrick Nevins, did for many years. Patrick Nevins also died early in life at age 43. He worked hard and was always learning about firefighting and that led to his reaching the elite Rescue 1 team. He always thought of helping first as a firefighter, in fact, he was off-duty waiting for his replacement when the alarms went off for the WTC attacks and he went to do his duty as a FDNY firemen.

So I pay tribute to a true American Hero, Jerry Nevins. Pray for us in heaven, Jerry, that we may be courageous as you and do the right things for our family, our friends and our country.

Here are the links I used to find information on Jerry Nevins:

Fallen Brothers Community

The Times Herald-Record article about his service

Proud to be an American

Legacy.com remembrance

Check out more tributes at the 2996 website by clickin here

Two examples of Catholic Youth in action

2006-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

I found two examples of Catholic Youth in action in the United States. The first one is an article about the Crossroads walk - a pro-life pilgrimage across the United States. It publicizes the dedication these college age students have for the pro-life message. 3 groups of college kids walk across the country. Inspired by Pope John Paul II and a speech he gave at World Youth Day in Denver, they are being the feet of Christ and are the face of the pro-life movement in the Church. Here is one part about the response of people to these youth:

Sarah Gallaher, a Franciscan University student from Arvin, Calif., was one of the northern walkers. "People honk, smile and wave. Some share their stories with us," she was quoted as saying by The Bakersfield Californian. "We've had some negative responses, but it's been 95 percent positive. America is pro-life -- we just need more people to stand up and say so."

The other example of Youth in action is the All School Liturgy that happened in Fort Worth, Texas last Wednesday. They expected 6,000 Catholic students from 19 schools to get together for a Mass to celebrate the new school year. This is a great example of bringing the massive numbers of Catholics together to worship together and fellowship. Here is one mother's reflection on the All School Liturgy:

Michelle Meekins of Fort Worth, whose two daughters attend St. Andrew Catholic School in Fort Worth, said she is looking forward to accompanying students to the event.
"When we have weekly Mass at St. Andrew and have 800 students stand up, hold hands and say the Lord's Prayer, it's very powerful," she said. "You see them do that and you think, 'We're all on the same road.' I'm not a teary person, but that brings tears to my eyes. And I'm looking forward to doing that on a larger scale."

Pope Benedict's wisdom about the needs of parish and youth

2006-09-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

I was directed by Amy Welborn's blog to a blog entry in Papa Ratzinger Forum that translated the Pope's talk with Italian priests. There are some great words of wisdom about parishes and about youth ministry. In this excerpt, he was asked about an integrated model of parish life where the laity works with the priests and here he sums ups his answer:

Now let me go on to the second aspect of parish ministry, which concerns both the workers as well as the work they do. The parish priest obviously cannot do everything! That is impossible. He cannot be a 'solo player' who does everything, but he needs other pastoral workers. Today, I think, whether through the new movements or through Catholic Action or through the new communities, we have workers who should be collaborators with the parish in an integrated ministry. It is important for this integrated ministry that other pastoral workers should not only be 'activated' but should be integrated into the work of the parish.

The parish priest must not only "do" but also "delegate." Those who work with him must learn to truly integrate themselves in the common tasks of the parish as well as in the auto-transcendence of the parish itself in a double sense: first, that the parishes collaborate within the diocese, because the Bishop is their common pastor and can help coordinate their tasks; and second, in that they are really working for all men, and should seek to bring the Christian message even to agnostics and to persons who are in search. And this is the third level about which we have spoken earlier rather diffusely.

The occasions I have indicated give us the chance to meet and to say missionary words to those who rarely go to church, and those who have little or no faith. Above all, these new pastoral workers and Catholic lay professionals should be able to bring the word of God even into those circles which are usually inaccessible to the parish priest. Coordinated by our Bishops, let us seek to integrate these different sectors of pastoral work, to activate the different pastoral workers in the common task: on the one hand, to strengthen the faith of believers who constitute a great treasure, and on the other hand, to bring the message of the faith to all those who are seeking with a sincere heart a satisfactory answer to their existential questions.

What an amazing answer. The laity and the priest working together with the Bishop at the lead to do the work of God through deeds and words. Yes, the laity if embolden by the Bishops and priests can get to areas that the clergy would have a hard time getting to and that is our work places, our non-church
going neighbors and family members. I know that my pastor encourages lay people to do God's work and to preach the Gospel to all we encounter - not so sure about the diocesan level action in this regard. Let us pray that the Bishop can encourage more of this and to have people from all parishes working together and not separately where we burn out by overdoing and get disappointed in the low numbers at work in our lone parish.

Youth Ministry
The Pope has similar words to say for the youth. The priest in charge of Youth Ministry asks Pope Benedict these questions:

How can it be possible for a priest today to show a preferential attitude for the youth in an already overcrowded pastoral agenda? How can we serve young people on the basis of their values instead of 'using' them for our own purposes?

Here is the Pope's response. I want to say right off that this has been my idea also in both Youth ministry and Young Adult Ministry, it is hard to get any traction with the Youth in the small numbers at a parish, but getting the youth together in the diocese and we have a force to be reckoned with and a size that will even convince the most skeptical teen. The pope answers:

I think that in this matter precisely is where we must exercise an integrated ministry because not every parish priest really has the time to occupy himself enough with young people. So we need a ministry that transcends the limits of the parish and even the limits of the priest's work. A ministry that of necessity must involve many workers. It seems to me that, under the coordination of the Bishop, a way should be found, on the one hand, to integrate the youth into the parish, so that they can be the ferment for parochial life; and on the other hand, to find extra-parochial persons who can work with them. Both should go together.

t must be suggested to our youth that they can integrate themselves into the life of the diocese, not only in parish work but in other contexts which ultimately point them back to their parishes. One must favor all initiatives in this direction. I think that the concept and experience of volunteer work is very important. Young people should not be left merely to indulging their diversions, but they should be given tasks in which they see that they are needed, in which they have a sense of doing something good for others. If they feel this impulse to do something good for humanity, for someone, for a group, then they will have a reason to involve themselves and will even find their own positive way of getting involved, their own expression of the Christian ethic. It is very important that they find tasks that need their involvement, that enable them to render positive service inspired by Christ's love, so that they themselves will look for the sources they can draw on to find the strength and the commitment for these services.

Another worthwhile experience for them are prayer groups, in which they learn to listen to the Word of God, to learn the Word of God precisely in their situation as young people, and to enter into contact with God. This means they should learn to take part in the common forms of prayer, the Liturgy, which initially may seem quite inaccessible to them. It would be useful to have classes in liturgy, which they can attend. This way they will learn that the Word of God seeks us out and speaks to us today even after so long a time [since Christ lived on earth], that we bring the fruits of the earth and our work to the Lord and we find them transformed into gifts of God, that we speak like children to our Father and in turn, we receive the gift of Himself. We receive the mission of going forth into the world with the gift of His Presence.

At the same time, it is useful to have special occasions during which the young people can present themselves in performance. I heard that recently here in Albano, there was a theatrical presentation on the life of St. Francis. To be involved in something like this means to enter into the person of St. Francis, into his time, and therefore, to widen one's own personality. This is just an example, and perhaps rather singular. It could be an occasion to educate oneself further, to appreciate the context of Christian tradition, to reawaken the thirst to know better what sources this saint drew from.

I agree with the Pope's ideas, we need to get the Youth involved and we don't have the resources in most parishes to do it right, it needs to be handled at a
diocesan level , at least with the main leadership, then the Parish Youth Ministers can just be funnelers to lead them to the diocese in regards to doing volunteer work, to get together for prayer and to do christian performances. I was just talking with another lay minister about this a few weeks ago, he was advocating a diocesan-wide evangelization work with the youth and young adults to get them to a deeper and more personal relationship with Jesus and I said that is great, but there is also a need for smaller parish groups to be catechists to the youth and young adults so they can learn their faith that can go along with the relationship with Jesus. This is exactly what the Pope is suggesting here also, the need for parochial youth ministry and also for diocesan level youth ministry. This can be done, it justs needs the right type of leaders that are on fire for the Lord and are open to God's graces and can surround themselves with workers that will handle all the nuts and bolts that these types of programs demand - one person can not do this all by themselves, not a parish youth minister and not a diocesan Youth Ministry leader. I pray that these words of the Pope may go out to all the dioceses in the world and that the bishops will act on them and enkindle the youth. It will keep alive the future leaders of the Church at an earlier age and will spark vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Long live Papa Ben.

Pope talks to Altar Servers

2006-08-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

The Pope used his general assembly last week to talk to the thousands of Altar Servers who were in Rome for a conference. My parish has altar servers now and I think it is a great service for kids to do. Here is a little of what the Pope said to the youths:

“Today, as a look out at you standing here in St. Peter’s Square, I think of the Apostles and feel the voice of Jesus who says to you, ‘I no longer call you servants, but friends, remain in my love and bear much fruit.’ I invite you: listen to this voice. Christ did not just say this 2000 years ago, he lives and speaks to you now.”

and the Pope also made a plug for vocations to the Church as he said:

“Perhaps to some of you the voice is saying, ‘I want you to serve me in a special way, as a priest, becoming my witness, being my friend and introducing others to this friendship.”

We should all pray that these youths may listen to the voice of God and respond to God's call of priesthood if they hear it. We should also help God by encouraging the Catholic youth to be open to vocations so that they can hear and obey the will of God. I have two young daughters and I have told them that a religious vocation would be a wonderful life if that is what they feel God is calling them to.

Fr. Quinn, Jesuit - Army Chaplain

2006-07-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

When I got married, my parish was run by Jesuits and two of the younger Jesuits that my wife and I knew were witnesses to our Sacrament of Matrimony. One of these priests, Fr. John Quinn, has done quite a few things in his life since then (Jesuits are famous for having very wide ranging vocations) like teaching photography to High schoolers, maintaining a web site, and other things. He was there at the Pentagon the day after 9/11 to help with comfort and sacraments. I just found out today though, that 2 years ago, he decided to be an Army Chaplain for the soldiers in Iraq. He is from a military family and was a Marine before he joined the Jesuits. He is there not to defend the war or our reasons there, but he is there to give comfort to the Catholic soldiers that need a priest for Sacraments.

Here is an old article that tells of his reasoning for going into the chaplaincy (I am getting it from Google's cache since the web site does not have it):

old article

Here is a web article about his life as an Army chaplain in Iraq:
Fr. John Quinn - Army Chaplain

I applaud Fr. John Quinn, for his great work in Iraq and for his willingness to serve there even though I know he isn't a big fan of our latest military. God bless you fr. John, you are a tribute to your order.

Twins ordained priests on the same day

2006-06-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

I surprisingly met the author of the Sacramento new priest article (see last post) at a friend's child birthday party (the child is her goddaughter so it shouldn't have been a big surprise, but they have moved away to Sacramento so I wasn't expecting her). While we were talking about her article, she mentioned an even greater story that she heard from one of the priests she interviewed. He was in the seminary in Rome with a man who had a twin and both twins were going to be ordained on June 24th in the diocese of Erie, PA. Another amazing part of the story is they are the last in their family to be born, out of 13 children. The mother was criticized for having more children after number 11, but look what happen, the two late twins become devoted to God and the Church.
Here is the article with more details on this amazing story:
Twins ordination

Unfortunately this story isn't archived yet so it is only on their current issue web page so sometime in July it may go away, I hope to be able to find it in archive and update the web link.

new priests being ordained - here are some of their stories

2006-06-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

I have always found it interesting to read or hear the stories about the path to priesthood for new priests being ordained. In the past, I have read these stories in the Catholic Register or in the Knights of Columbus magazine (a great magazine by the way) but this year, I found other stories online in diocesan newspaper websites. Here are some I found:

The best one is the Diocese of Arlington, click here and look for the seven stories:

Here is an article from Diocese of Austin, click here:

Here is an article from Diocese of Sacramento, click here (my friend wrote this):

Here is an article from Diocese of Phoenix, click here:

Memorial Day - history and prayer for the day

2006-05-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day is one of those holidays that Americans get the day off for but do not really "use" the day as it was meant to be, mostly because public displays of patriotism and memorialization are not as popular as once was. But as Catholics, I think we need to try to keep the history of Memorial Day intact and instill in our friends and family a time during this weekend and especially on Monday to reflect on those who served and died in the Armed Forces of America so that we can live in this land of the free. Here is a history and a prayer from a website
from the Association of the Miraculous Medal (webpage here) :

HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAY:

After the bloody war between the States, citizens of the North and the South felt a need to honor those fallen in the war. On various days people from different communities would place flowers at the graves of those they wished to honor. The day came to be known as Decoration Day. By 1868, the northern states were keeping the day on May 30.

In 1882, the day was renamed Memorial Day and extended to honor the fallen in other wars. Since 1950, Congress has designated Memorial Day as a day when the people of the United States might unite in prayer for permanent peace. In 1971, President Nixon declared it a national holiday and designated the commemoration for the last Monday in May.

Besides honoring those Americans from the armed forces, it is also a day for personal remembrance of all loved ones. Flowers on graves, church services, visits to the cemetery are all ways to mark the day with dignity and solemnity. In this spirit it is only fitting to make this day one of prayer in our Catholic faith with its long tradition of remembering the faithful departed.

Scripture Reading

Judas Maccabeus then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view.

II Maccabees 12: 43

Prayer

Lord God,
you are the glory of believers
and the life of the just.
Your Son redeemed us
by dying and rising to life again.
Since our brothers and sisters believed
in the mystery of the resurrection,
we join our prayers
to those of the Blessed Virgin Mary
as we ask that they share
the joys and blessings of the life to come.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I heard this poem on Dr. Laura's radio show last week, I think it is a refreshing reminder of
what soldiers do for us:

Thank a Soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,

Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,

Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,

Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,

Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,

Who salutes the flag,

Who serves under the flag,

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

To all the brave men and women who have dedicated or given their lives to protecting this country and it’s freedoms:

Thank you. You are hero’s in our eyes and forever in our hearts.

If you can read this message thank a teacher,

If you are reading it in English of your own free will THANK A SOLDIER!

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!

“It is better to fight for something, than to live for nothing”-General George S. Patton

Although the above is not really for the dead soldier, as Catholics, we believe in life after death and the Communion of Saints, so there definitely are soldiers in Heaven that we can thank and ask for their prayers. The military gets a bad rap these days but if you think about it, if the U.S. did not get involved in World War I, II and the cold war, it may have been possible for dictators from Germany or Soviet Union to conquer the United States and we would not have the rights and privileges we have now. Time to tell if our ongoing War on Terrorism will be seen in the same light or not, especially due to the enemies using new and unorthodox methods of warfare.

Hopefully soon, we will have a world where war will be a thing of the past, that peace will
reign over the whole Earth so we can concentrate on sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked.

Great story about Fr. Tom, priest for 64 years, still going strong

2006-05-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

I read this story in the online Arizona Republic today ( I lived in Arizona for almost 10 years while in High School and College) about Fr. Tom who is still working as a priest after 64 years. This was a heartwarming story and I wanted to share it with others. This seems unique now but I bet in the future we will see more priests working in their late 70s and early 80s just because of the priest shortage and also because some men are not becoming priests until their 40s or 50s so I am sure the Church will ask them to continue in working until they can not due to health. At my parish, there is a mature priest that comes to say daily Mass once a week and the daily Mass attenedants love him like a grandfather, he gets a little flustered some times but his mind is pretty sharp and his homilies are very nice. Back to the article, I liked the fact that Fr. Tom listens to confessions every day and I think that would be a great trend that should continue, older priests concentrating on listening to confessions (as long as they can hear well :)
If people knew that a priest was available every day for confession, I think there would be more people coming in for confessions.

Here is the story in the Arizona Republic (I used to deliver that paper when I was in high school on my bike):
Fr. Tom article

Pope says Marriage is good for Society

2006-05-14T02:11:00.000-07:00

The Pope spoke to participants of a Catholic Marriage conference and he stated very clearly that Marriage is good for society and is a copy (albeit imperfect) of the love between God and his people. Here is the Link:
Pope's address on Marriage

encouraging more priestly vocations thru TV and college campuses

2006-05-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

I saw the "God or the Girl" series on A&E a week ago and I thought it was pretty good, it was a good peek at what some men go through in their discernment process and I was glad that the producers treated the men with respect and dignity. I was glad with the results, I thought all made the right decision but there is hope that a change in their decisions could happen later in life, I have a friend who was in his late 30's when he decided to be a priest and with the increasing life expectancy, he could be a priest for over 30 years which is a long time I think.

Also, I saw this news on EWTN web site, a new group called FOCUS that encourages and promotes Catholic beliefs in College students by having them form Catholic communities within the college campus life. I think this is a great idea as it is my belief that modern day men should not discern priesthood until either after college or after several years in the real job market (I would even say a man that has both non-seminarian college and work experience is a better priestly candidate than a man that doesn't). And during that time, they should feel free to date and discern marriage also, I would say foregoing dating should only happen when you are in the final stages of discernment for the priesthood. As priests need to know about their parishioners, the college and work years will be a help for this knowledge. Here is the EWTN link: College campus Catholics

We all need to pray for more vocations especially for the priesthood and we all need to encourage men and boys to consider the priesthood especially those who have an inclination to the Catholic faith - but even Catholic men that are not excited about the faith now can change over time and if they have been encouraged to think of priestly vocations, it may be the opening the Holy Spirit needs to start that process in motion.

CBS news did a great job with Asian seminarian report

2006-04-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Asian seminarian report on the CBS evening news last night was very good. I know one of the seminarians pretty well, Joe Kim, and I have met the other one (I have a close friend who is in the seminary with these two gentlemen). They are both solid Catholics and will be excellent priests. Here is the web page to the video of the report plus they have two bonus web-only videos of clips they did not use on the TV:
CBS news report

I like the way they said Asians are like the new Irish in Catholic terms. We definitely are getting more Asian priests here in San Jose and they have been mostly solid orthodox priests - my parish has had 4 consecutive Asian Associate vicars ( chinese, 2 vietnamese and now a filipino) and two of them are now pastors at another parish in San Jose Diocese. Their accents are sometimes hard to understand but you get used to them and they get better at speaking english also. I am sure that the italians at a mostly irish parish had a hard time understanding the irish priests also. I still have a hard time understanding some irish priests :)

Pope talks to young people about the bible, vocations and science

2006-04-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

I just love our new Pope. Pope Benedict is a great pope already, his encyclical on Love is great, everyone should read it. He also is great at teaching the Catholic faith. He spoke to a group
of young people for the annual World Youth Day (the off year version that is held in local dioceses, the big WYD is not until 2008 in Australia) in the Rome Diocese. Here is the EWTN summary
of this address:
Pope Benedict answering questions from young people.

I understand that some Catholics are criticizing the Pope for not cleaning up the Church faster than he is. To them I say Patience. As I have seen in other blogs, the Pope has a lot to deal with around the world so he cannot change the Church in one year, I see a gradual change in the way the Church is run and that is probably for the best. May God bless Pope Benedict during this busy time of year, Holy Week is the busiest time for any priest/bishop/cardinal/Pope.

Local seminarians

2006-04-09T01:35:00.000-07:00

I have gotten news that a news item on CBS News at 5:30 pm (Pacific time) on Tuesday will be about the number of Asian seminarians in Catholic seminaries especially out here in the west. Our diocese uses St. Patrick's at Menlo Park and I have met some of these Asian seminarians and they seem to be good men that have a great love for Jesus and the Church. CBS is probably doing this news item for two reasons, 1) the San Jose Mercury News had a great article about Asian seminarians a few weeks ago. Here is the article reprinted in another newspaper (the Mercury News is part of Knight Ridder, which owns for now a number of papers across the country - they have sold all the papers but that hasn't been finalized yet):
San Jose Mercury News article
2) it is the start of holy week - the time of the year when the News Media remembers there are tons of Christians and they put out all their Christian articles during this week ( check out the magazine racks and see Jesus this week but never on any other week).

So check out CBS news to see if they do a good job with this - I hear they interviewed Fr. Mark Catalana - the vocations director of the San Jose Diocese and a great priest. Let us all pray that this news item may kindle a desire in good men to become priests, especially Asians and other minorities (who are quickly becoming majorities in the US and the Catholic Church).

new snow a sign of transfiguration

2006-03-16T01:48:00.000-08:00

My family was up in the Sierras last weekend to enjoy the snow. Well, we got our fill of the white stuff, 20 inches of it fell in a two day. Luckily it stopped before Sunday so we were able to go to Mass that morning. The priest had a great analogy in the homily regarding the Gospel reading of the transfiguration. He said the new snow transfigured the world around the mountain so we are getting a glimpse of what is to come when we meet the transfigured Christ. It was very beautiful to see - all the white snow in the trees, on the ground and on the roofs.

Godspell Jr. performance at my Church

2006-02-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

I saw all 3 Godspell Jr. performances at my Church last weekend and they were very good. My daughter was in the play and it was performed by junior high children from our Church and Catholic school. If some of you are not familiar with Godspell, it is a musical from the late 60s about the Gospel of Matthew done in a hippie/modern setting. As a parent that has most of the Veggie Tales videos ( Christian videos that have a lot of silly recreation of bible stories), I can appreciate attempts to modernize and make the Gospel easier for children to understand. I believe that if Christ had come at our time, he would be reaching out to the youth in a similar way as the Jesus character in Godspell - I even imagine that he would pick his 12 apostles from Catholic youth that probably wouldn't be the clean cut type. Jesus didn't come for those that are already devout, he came for those on the fringes, those who were struggling with their faith and wanted to do good but fell short. He called them to new holiness and he calls all of us even today to new holiness, so if Godspell can interest young people to the Gospel message then it is for God's goodness. I know it already has borne fruit because my daughter has been able to encourage some of the youth in the play to come to Church more often and to attend youth catechism.

Good news with California's Capital Punishment

2006-02-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

I heard the good news that the execution of Mr. Morales last night was put off indefinitely. Hopefully this will start a discussion on the morality of the death penalty and I can only hope that it will be stopped. The United States does not need the death penalty, it has a very good prison system that can keep society safe from convicted killers. Let us all pray that this latest development will be the first step toward eradicating the death penalty from the United States and the world.

Deus Caritas Est

2006-02-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

I read the Pope's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, last week and I liked it very much. The first part was a good explanation on Christian Love and how it ties together with romantic love and brotherly love. This may be something that we all should read every once in a while so we can remind ourselves that the Gospel message is basically Love, God is Love and he wants us to Love him and Love our neighbors (or we should just say love everyone as everyone is our neighbor). I liked the second part myself because Pope Benedict reminds us that we all need to do our part and be charitable to all - we can not put all charity onto the government and he is even stating that we shouldn't put all charity onto government because then this charity will lose its Christian dimension. I have always felt that it is sad that the Church has given so much of its responsibility to help those in the Church to the government. It would be great if the deacons of the Church went back to helping those in need and having the congregation helping. My Parish just recently had a call out to help someone in need with clothing and blankets and my wife sent out an email and got around 7 responses from people willing to help. Let us all pray that we can be more charitable this year to those in need especially in our own neighborhoods and in the Church.

Happy New Year and Narnia in the News

2006-01-17T01:09:00.000-08:00

My holiday season was very nice except for all the rain. My church celebrated its 100 year anniversary in style at a local conference center (used to be a victorian mansion) with a big New Year's eve bash (our parish feast day is near New Year's Day). It was a great bash and seeing the old pictures of the church was really fun. The 12 days of Christmas were very nice, I had to work most of the days but it was quiet at work so it was pleasant. Epipany is a great day and I wish that everyone in this country can see the beautiful of this day, Jesus bringing the faith and the Church to everyone in the whole world and he isn't even a toddler yet!!! The wise men were drawn by his star of brightness, May we also be drawn to Jesus' light and give him worship and praise.

I saw the movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with my daughter and it is an excellent movie. The special effects were done very nicely and the beauty of Narnia came shining through. I read the book right before we went - it wasn't until later that I realized the movie changed some stuff from the book especially the chase scene and the waterfall. But the general theme is still there - especially the Christian themes in the book. While thinking about the movie, the only concern that came to me was that it includes a big battle and all the main characters are fighting the war (except the girls) - I realize war and battle are old time Christian themes, but I hesitate to say that Christians need to be in a real war - we need to learn to live in peace with everyone. So I figured that the movie was dramatizing our battle against evil and just portrayed that as a war battle.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

2005-12-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

In the middle of the Christmas season, I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas - I hope everyone's Christmas day was joyful and peaceful. I have had a very good Christmas season this year, it was much more laid back and less stressful, which can cause some stress in itself (e.g. thinking that you need to do more or get things done you have decided to put off or eliminate). We did a lot less decorating inside this year and I think that was good. One thing we did do was to buy an outdoor nativity display (3 wood panels with nativity scenes painted on them, very cute) but because of the rain, I didn't put it up until Dec. 23 which was fine because it wasn't even Christmas by then anyways. I enjoyed the Christmas parties sponsored by my two favorite Catholic organizations, Marriage Encounter and Knights of Columbus, they were great parties full of fun people and families that have goood Catholic values.

I read the Pope's Christmas homily and I think it was great, the point he made that God loved us so much he became a defenseless little baby was such a superb viewpoint, God became small for us, he became a child for us and that is what we celebrate on Christmas, God becoming child and we give gifts to each other as a sign of us giving gifts to the newborn King. I read that some people have been calling for people to give gifts of money or items to the poor as a gift to relatives and I think I may try that next year with my daughters, one gift will be a donation to a charitable organization and I will wrap up the receipt or something and give it to my daughters during Christmas. Our church already has a Christmas giving tree and we participated in that and my daughter even picked out a few for us to give for ( one girl wanted books, my daughter loves books and another girl wanted makeup, my daughter is too young for makeup but she liked that she was able to pick out makeup for this girl) and we do give to other organizations but we don't treat them as gifts to us and they are, as Jesus said, whenever you give to the least of your brothers and sisters, you give to me.

I want to remind everyone that Christmas season is two weeks long so keep the Christmas joy and peace in your heart for another week. Today is the feast of the Holy Family, a big feast for my family as our parish is Holy Family and so it is a big feast day for us. I pray that I may become more like St. Joseph in my family and be the provider of the faith and all things that my children need to grow to be faithful Catholic adults. God bless you all and a Happy New Year, I see things turning around for the Catholic Church especially in America - more seminarians, more bishops that want the Church to be faithful witnesses to the American people, more decent entertainment opportunities (especially EWTN being put on a lot of digital cable outlets), and more eucharistic adoration opportunities. Keep praying for all this.

XLT - Adoration for the younger set

2005-12-17T01:45:00.000-08:00

I went to XLT for the first time a few weeks ago and I have to say that I was very impressed even if we were in the Church Hall and not the Church because of a school concert. XLT is basically a mixture of praise and worship and eucharistic adoration. It seems to be broken up into 3 parts, 1st part is praise and worship, 2nd part is a teaching and 3rd part is the adoration. However, what makes the adoration different is that after the normal adoration songs/chants, the Eucharist is adored while worship music is played softly, so you can either sing the worship music or pray your own prayers. The eucharist is then put back away and then the evening ends with praise songs. It was a blessed moment and I enjoyed it. The teens in attendance also seem to like it which is the whole point of it. I hope to be able to go again soon.

Advent - coming of Christ

2005-11-27T23:53:00.000-08:00

I like the Advent season, for the obvious reason of course, but also because it is a great way to keep the "secular Christmas fanaticism" away. Advent asks that we wait and watch for Jesus, that we do penance ( one of our parish priest's homily was all about reconciliation, that we need to be reconciled with Jesus and our neighbor - he suggested that we go to confession at least once during this advent season. In fact, my friends and I tried to inform others, especially other Catholics, that the official Christmas season does not start until Christmas day - we are in Advent season not Christmas season. That said, my family still does some Christmas secular stuff like putting Christmas lights on the house, decorating the house before Christmas eve, talking about Santa Claus with the kids, etc. But we definitely don't act fanatical on this stuff, some people already had Christmas lights on after Thanksgiving and all those stores that open at 5 AM on Friday - we don't do that stuff. We got our advent candles out and bought an advent calendar for the kids. My big point on Advent that I try to tell people all the time is that we are also preparing anew for Jesus' 2nd coming. He said he would be coming again and the Church wisely has us contemplating this "coming again". So we basically get a two-for-one deal with advent - waiting for the anniversary of his 1st coming and waiting for his second coming. I would urge everyone to slow down this Advent season - no need to rush doing all those Christmas activities - they can wait - in fact, Christmas season goes from Christmas Day until Baptism of the Lord in the middle of January - two weeks to display your Christmas stuff.
I was teaching at Children's ministry for our prayer meeting and I went over the historical aspects of advent, the liturgical aspect of the season and went over some of the symbols used in advent. Also, since there is no meeting next week, I also included a discussion of St. Nicholas
whose feast day is on Dec. 6th. Giving some gifts on St. Nicholas day ( especially in a shoe left out) is a great way to change up the Christmas season - St. Nicholas was known for his generousity and also his humbleness and is the model of all Christians. It is rumored that Santa Claus is a derivative of St. Nicholas especially when pronounced in Dutch (sinter klaas - watch Miracle on 34th street - there is a scene when a dutch girl comes to Santa and she does say sinter klaas). So May God bless your advent season, that he may slow down your days and help you to contemplate Jesus' 2nd coming.

End of the Year of the Eucharist

2005-11-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

The Year of the Eucharist has ended and Pope John Paul II's last gift to the Church has come to a close. I love the statement from the bishops at the end of the Eucharistic Synod:

"At the end of this Synod", they wrote, "we experience that peace full of hope which the disciples of Emmaus, with burning hearts, received from the Risen Lord. They arose and returned in haste to Jerusalem, to share their joy with their brothers and sisters in the faith. We hope that you will go joyfully to meet Him in the Holy Eucharist, and that you will experience the truth of His words: 'And I am with you until the end of the world'."

This is the essence of the Eucharist, that it will be create burning hearts like those at Emmaus so that all will go joyfully and spread his truth to all. I haven't been able to go to Eucharistic adoration as much as I wanted to but I do know there is a groundswelling at my Parish to have a full day each week with eucharistic adoration and we got a new priest who is devoted to adoration and may be helping that cause. Also a new type of eucharistic adoration has slowly been working its way around Catholic parishes here and that is worship and adoration - Life Teen calls it XLT and that is what has come to my parish. What XLT is (I haven't experienced it yet myself, but my wife told me about it) is a combination of worship music and adoration - I first thought it was together which I thought was different but may work, but I have found out that it is like side by side, worship music is first and then adoration. As a charismatic Catholic, I see this as a beautiful coming together of two great ways to show your love to God - worship and adoration - also I can see that the worship will build up a love and emotion for God that will be poured out in adoration and make it a truly spiritual experience. I do think our culture is changing to one of noise, people are more at peace with noise nowadays and so the worship music brings the noise into adoration so it isn't a totally boring situation for most young people. I am excited about this and hope it causes more devotion to the eucharist and to the Church and ultimately to the love of Christ for all people.

Pope meets with first communicants

2005-10-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

I read this story about the Pope meeting with first communicants and I thought it was great, I loved the questions the kids had for the Pope. What a thing to have as a kid, an audience with the Pope due to your first communion.
Here is the web page: Pope with first communicants

ethnic diversity event at my Church was a blast

2005-10-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

We had an ethnic diversity Mass and event ( with ethnic food and dancing ) this month and I think it went great, a little crowded but that is the hazard of doing a great job in promotion :) I jokingly asked if there were going to be any European ethnicities represented and got it thrown into my face when I was asked to head up one of my European ethnicities ( I am English, German, Polish and Irish) and I wanted Irish but was already taken so I took Polish. It was nice digging into my polish heritage that I hadn't given much thought to in a long time. I found two other people of polish heritage and we presented some traditional polish foods like kielbasa, pierogis, and chrushiki. The Mass was nice with a lot of influence from the African cultures (we have a big population of Nigerians that go to our church). The event afterwards had a lot of food,
filipino, vietnamese, african, mexican and italian were big in the food category. The dances were nice also. We hope to make this an annual event, maybe I can rotate my heritage and work on each of my ethnicities.

Turned 40 this month - just seems weird to be this old.

2005-10-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

I turned 40 this month and although I realize that 40 isn't that old nowadays, it still is a shock to me to be that old. It feels like only yesterday that I was in my late 20s, but now I am middle aged and unfortunately look the part. But I have a loving family and a great Church community to support me and that is all I need to continue on and live the life that God has called for me.

Christian liberals vs. Christian conservatives

2005-09-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Nathan Nelson posted these questions to answer from his blog, Here I Stand and I will do so on my blog below:

1. What is good about Christian liberalism?

Christian liberalism is good when it encourages change in the Church that is not against the authentic teachings of Christ and the Bible. Liberalism is a call to change, to reform and to make things better (in liberals' minds) in any context be it Christianity, politics or even baseball. Examples of good Christian liberalism are abolition of slavery, the end of Church run Political states ( i.e. Holy Roman Empire) and Vatican II. As humans evolve and grow, change will always be needed and liberals will probably be the ones that first come up with the ideas (though they probably will have to be tempered by guess who? conservatives).

2. What is bad about Christian liberalism?

Christian liberalism is bad when it encourages change in the Church either against the authentic teachings of Christ and the Bible (I say authentic teachings because everyone has their own opinion on what the teachings of Christ are, but authentic teachings are the teachings that have been declared by either the magisterium of the Church or by the Holy Spirit to the whole Church - not someone's own personal prophecy) or that is based only on emotional or sinful desires. I think a liberal idea can be bad at one point in time since it could be against the current authentic teaching and then that same idea can be good later because I do believe the Holy Spirit can enlighten the entire body (or at least more of the body :) and show the Church that the liberal idea or change is good and right. But I do believe a lot of liberal ideas are started because of selfishness or pride or lust and anytime that happens, the liberalism is bad.

3. What do you think would make for a more authentic Christian liberalism?

Christian liberalism could be more authentic if the liberal ideas and beliefs were prayed about, were discussed within the liberal community and presented to the entire body with regards to traditions of the Church and why these traditions should be changed.

4. What one thing would you like Christian liberals to understand better?

I would like Christian liberals to understand that authentic change should not take place
quickly, any good change especially for something as old as Christianity will take a while to be manifested and that isn't a slam against liberalism, it is the proper way. I realize that means that some may not live to see the change take place, but that is life.

5. What is good about Christian conservatism?

Christian conservatism is good when it upholds and protects the authentic teachings of the Church as presently understood. It is good when it demands that liberal ideas be tempered against traditions and years of teachings. Liberalism tends to want everything changed at once even when trying to reform a small portion of Christianity, conservatives are necessary to hold the changes back until they are seen as necessary or part of the authentic teaching of Jesus - usually by the Holy Spirit showing the majority of the Body of Christ that the change needs to occur.

6. What is bad about Christian conservatism?

Christian conservatism is bad when it tries to resist change that is authentic because of a resistance to change. Most conservatives don't like change and won't want to change even if the change is shown by the Holy Spirit to be good for the Body. Also conservatism is bad when it holds onto traditions and teachings due to emotional or sinful desires, just the opposite of bad liberalism.

7. What do you think would make for a more authentic Christian conservatism?

A more authentic Christian conservatism would be possible if liberalism wasn't demonized but seen as a positive force that needs tempering or steering. One example of this is the Catholic church's teaching of Humanae Vitae and also with homosexuality. Humanae Vitae allowed for a liberal thought of that sex is good and should be encouraged and enjoyed by both married partners but it tempered the liberal beliefs of contraception and outside fertilization.
Also with homosexuality, the Church has embraced the belief that homosexual people are not bad or evil people, it is only the homosexual act that is bad. It is too easy for conservatives to bash liberals (I know I fall into that trap) instead of just continuing to state the teachings that show some liberal ideas as not good ideas.

8. What one thing would you like Christian conservatives to understand better?

See answer to question 7.

9. Do you have a problem with "liberal" and "conservative" in the Church? If so, please explain, and please explain how you think that diversity of opinion should be better presented in the Church.

The only problem I have with liberal and conservative is that liberals have been allowed to
change the liturgy without doing the above steps I have shown - bishops and pastors have allowed liturgical changes in certain parishes that have not been fully thought out and are merely experiments, I don't think the Mass is a place for experiments against authentic teachings. Diversity of opinion should be discussed two ways, one is correspondence to those you want to enlighten, say the pastor or bishop or theologian and this correspondence can be two ways and can help a liberal or conservative see why their stance is with or not with Church teaching and also, I believe "town hall" meetings could be possible as long as any liberal or conservative ideas outside of authentic Church teaching is defined as such and that an opportunity for someone to give the authentic teaching who is qualified to do so is given. I am disgusted when liberal groups give a talk and they try to persuade people that their point of view is authentic teaching without any regards to giving the other side of the discussion. Liberals should not be afraid to tell the current teaching to people in a dignified respectful manner. I would think people would be much more willing and impressed to hear a liberal idea that states why it is better than authentic teaching - when the authentic teaching is given in respect but then the new change is shown to make the teaching better.

10. What do you have to say that you think I should hear and listen to?

The Church's teachings are hundreds of years old, the Church does not hate liberals and their ideas, it only seeks the truth (and both liberals and conservatives have the truth, truth is a difficult concept for people but not for God). Also, the Body of Christ is comprised of sinners, both conservative sinners and liberal sinners, and therefore, feelings are going to be hurt, statements are going to be made and things are going to be done that will be sinful and hurtful and forgiveness is something we all need to strive for.

Lay Pastor Society - Catholic evangelization

2005-09-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

I am getting involved with a program coming to our Church called Lay Pastor Society. It is a Catholic evangelization program that has lay people calling parishioners to inform them of upcoming Parish events, asking them to get involved and to see if they have any concerns or prayer requests. I think it will be a great program especially for those who are either leery of the Church or can not get around too much nad would like to keep up with what is going on in the Parish. If anyone has experience with this program, please let me know. Thanks. Here is the website for the program:
Lay Pastor Society

Catholic Church and Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

I am happy to see that the Catholic Church is doing all it can to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I have heard that all Catholic Churches were having collections for the victims and my parish did that today - in fact, the parish bumped its monthly second collection for parish maintenance so that they could have a collection for the victims. At the Mass I went to this morning, the priest said that since Jesus calls us to Love one another (2nd reading) , the best way for us to show love for the victims was to donate our money so that they can recover from the disaster. Also, like today's gospel says, we need to gather together to pray since Jesus listens to those who gather in his name and prays. Also, from Amy Welborn's Blog, I see that a lot of other Catholic organizations are doing what they can to help out. One organization in particularly I wanted to mention was Knights of Columbus, they are matching donations up to 2.5 million - their web site is here:
http://www.kofc.org

Let us continue to pray for those affected by this disaster and do all we can to help them.

WYD in Australia with my daughter in 2008

2005-08-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

I found out that a priest we know has said that he wants to bring a big group of youth to the next World Youth Day in Australia in 2008 and when my daughter found this out, she started jumping and saying I want to go to Australia. So hopefully if she can raise enough money for the both of us, we will go. I have always wanted to go to Australia and another good thing is that everyone speaks my one and only language, English. My daughter has never been out of the country so this would be a great experience for her as well. She is very excited.

World Youth Day watching

2005-08-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

I have been watching a lot of the World Youth Day coverage from Germany through EWTN and I have been impressed both with Pope Benedict's role in WYD and with the number of young people that have come to WYD. I have loved the Pope's smile and his wave of recognition when the young have called out his name. He also has looked like the Head of the Catholic Church when he has given his speeches and homilies. I am amazed at how many people have been to the events of WYD. The Pope's arrival on the boat and with the thousand and thousands of people on the shore was wonderful to see. The crowd at Marienfeld has been unbelievable, so many people at one place to share their Catholic faith together. I loved the altar area that was created for the vigil and closing Mass (which I am watching on EWTN as I type this ) - I heard on EWTN that the hill was to represent the going to the mountain top scriptures like the transfiguration and Moses with the Ten Commandments and that the structure covering the altar was done to look like a cloud (It was very cool to see when it was all lit up last night for the vigil service) which also represented the transfiguration and Moses. I am so happy that the WYD was a great success, it is estimated that 1 million people are at the closing Mass. Amy Welborn's blog site has a list of all the bloggers that are at the WYD events, some are journalist and some are youth pilgrims. I have a link to Amy Welborn's web page in my links list.

Sorry about not blogging more regularly

2005-08-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

I guess I am not the blogging type of guy, I have not been very good at blogging these last few weeks, I have lost the meditations file for the last 2 weeks so I am sorry I didn't blog those. My daughter asked me if I was going to blog and I said no, but then I thought, I should since I haven't for awhile. I have been reading the blogs from Germany and I am excited about this World Youth Day, the first for Pope Benedict - I think it will be a big success. I have been thinking this week about my daughter maybe going in 6 years to the World Youth Day after Australia's in 2008. I wonder where the 2011 World Youth day would be, maybe South America or possibly even Africa, though Africa may have a hard time logistically. So maybe Brazil would be a good place - especially since August in Brazil is their winter so it may not be as hot as it would be.

Pope visits his brother

2005-08-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I find it heartwarming that the Pope went to see his brother, it really does show a more human side of him. I pray that his brother may fully recover from his surgery. Here is the Link to the news:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=59225

Sunday Mass meditation for Eighteenth week of Ordinary time

2005-07-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Here is the Mass meditation from The California Mission magazine:

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Mass Readings:
Isa 55: 1-3
Psalm 145:8-18
Rom 8:35-39
Matt 14:13-21

Many a mother has handed some food to a son or daughter as they dash in from one extracurricular activity and back out to another, to sports, or to work. In her wisdom she knows that the body cannot run for long on "empty." The time she puts into bagging up something of the family's meal makes visible the love and care she feels for her child. So too, the Church in her wisdom recognizes that Jesus is the only satisfying food for our soul, and in our Sunday liturgy we celebrate as a community of faith the heavenly nourishment the Lord provides us in the Eucharist.
We are reminded of the Eucharistic celebration in today's gospel. From Matthew's account of Jesus feeding the five thousand we learn that the crowd had followed Jesus into a deserted place (see Matt 14:13). The hour grew late and they were quite a distance from any town. Having cured their sick, Jesus again showed deep compassion by feeding the crowd. How correctly the Psalmist perceived the extent of God's love for his people! "The eyes of all look hopefully to you, and you give them their food in due season; you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing" (Psalm 145:15-16).
Rather than dismissing the crowd and saying that he had done enough for one day, Jesus understood the hunger of the people for truth and their constant need to know God's love. He said, "there is no need for them to go away." The Lord speaks this same word to us today. There is no need for us to turn aside to seek for some other solution to our problems. He says that if we are thirsty, come to the water. If we have no money, he says, "come, receive grain and eat." Without paying, without cost, come to the Lord (see Isaiah 55: 1-3).
The Lord does not grow tired in caring for us. He still has many more wonderful blessings to share with us. "They all ate and were satisfied" (Matt 14:20). Next time that you are aware of the Lord's compassion for you, consider lingering even longer in his presence. Let the Lord give you a sense of the height and depth of his love for you.
The depth of Christ's compassion was demonstrated when he laid down his life on the cross at Calvary. We who have the eyes of faith can see that the Lord has loved us. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (see Romans 8:39). This love endures beyond our Eucharistic liturgy and accomplishes miracles in our lives.

Sunday Mass meditation for Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary time, 7/24/05

2005-07-21T01:03:00.000-07:00

I will continue to post the California Mission magazine Sunday Mass meditations on this website but if you want them to come to your email, I am also putting them on the California Mission magazine Yahoo Group site and you can join and get them via email. Just click on the button below:

Click to join CaliforniaMissionmag

Here is the mediation for this Sunday's readings:

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Mass Readings:
1 Kings 3:5-12
Ps 119:72-77.127- 130
Rom 8:28-30
Matt 13:44-52

"The kingdom of God is like a buried treasure which a man found in a field... Or, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant's search for fine pearls." In the parables of the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus calls us to recognize and embrace God's reign over our lives as the most precious good we could ever seek for ourselves. This grace can come to us as something utterly unexpected-like the man who found the treasure in his field. Or, this grace can come to us as something that we have deeply desired and sought-like the merchant who was constantly on the look for the most precious pearl. However God's grace finds us, we are called to make whatever sacrifices are needed in order that God may be our sole treasure.

How can each of us embrace "the pearl of great price" in our own lives? For each Christian, the response will vary. We need to consider our state in life and our responsibilities in our family (husband, wife, children) or to other groups or people. The prayer of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:5-12 is a good example to consider. Solomon was king of Israel. How was he to line up his whole life under God's authority? What should he ask of the Lord? Solomon recognized his immaturity and need for wisdom. He did not ask the Lord "for a long life, nor for riches, nor for the life of
his enemies, but for understanding," so that he might know right from wrong and guide the people the Lord had entrusted to him. The Lord was pleased with Solomon's request. It was obviously the prayer of a man who recognized the responsibilities of the position God had entrusted to him. It was the prayer of a man who earnestly desired that God's will be the measure for himself and all the people.

Another way to consider how we can embrace the pearl of great price is to ask ourselves what we are holding back from God. Is there any part of our life where we act independently of God, without seeking His guidance or authority? Do we think that our work, or our hobbies, or our home, or our vacation plans are outside the scope of God's order? Think for instance, about your vacation. Did not God Himself command us to take times of rest? Is He not interested in restoring and refreshing us after a long year of work and family activities? What would our vacations be like if we asked the Lord to guide us in our choices and plans?

An insider's look of the Pope's vacation

2005-07-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

Popes go on vacation in July to get away from the Roman summer heat and Pope Benedict is no exception. Although I have read that he is using his vacation to do some writing and to catch up on reading, it has been said he enjoys getting away so he can do his personal work of writing and reading, two things he enjoys doing as we all know from his writings through the years. I ran across this article in the EWTN news about an inside look to what the Pope is doing on his vacation. Check it out here:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=58737
May God bless his time away and may God recharge his batteries as the Pope will need them charged up next month for World Youth Day in Germany, the Pope's home country.

Sunday Mass reading meditation for this Sunday readings

2005-07-14T01:18:00.000-07:00

This meditation for the 16th Sunday of the Ordinary time was first published in The California Mission magazine ( http://www.msjc.org ) in July 1999 and it is here:

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Mass Readings:
Wis 12:13.16-19
Psalm 85:5-16
Rom 8:26-27
Matt 13:24-43

Last Sunday we heard the parable of the Sower and the Seed, which describes the power of God's word and how a person should receive it. Today, the gospel parable also speaks of sowing seeds, but this time Jesus identifies the seeds, not as the word of God, but as ''the citizens of the
kingdom." This distinction allows us to ponder the significance of what Jesus is teaching in today's parable of the "Wheat and the Weeds."
The wheat that springs from the good seed represents the citizens of the kingdom of God. The weeds represent ''the followers of the evil one." The wheat and weeds both sprout and grow together in the field that represents this world. But at harvest time, which represents God's judgment at the end of the world, the wheat and weeds will be separated. Thus, this parable covers the whole course of time between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ. Most likely, we do not often think about this vast scope of time. Even if we pray and try to develop our spiritual lives, we may think it best to focus on our own situation and problems and not think about ''the big picture," which is presumably God's concern. But the very fact that Jesus taught us this parable shows us how shortsighted this thinking is.
As we hear the parable of the wheat and weeds we need to start asking Jesus to teach us about ''the big picture" and why this is an important part of our spiritual lives. One thing the parable teaches us is that God has authority over everything that happens in the world-whether good or evil. Nothing escapes His hand. When we forget this "big picture," we often get so discouraged by the evil in the world that we give in to cynicism or destructive anger. The big picture gives us strength to resist evil, trust in God's power, and patience in the midst of our trials.
The parable also reminds us that someday every person will face judgment before Almighty God. Someday we will all have to account for our deeds before God. There will be a day when God will perfectly establish His justice. We need to remember that our life and the lives of every Single person we will ever meet are all heading toward this definitive encounter with God.
How important is it for us to remember this perspective.

Sunday Mass readings meditation for this Sunday from the California Mission magazine

2005-07-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

I am the webmaster for the www.msjc.org web site and the MSJC prayer group put out a magazine for 5 years called "The California Mission" and one of the regular features of the magazine was the Sunday Mass Reading meditations for each Sunday. The magazine is no more but since the Catholic Church rotates the Mass readings on Sundays every 3 years, the meditations can live forever. Here is the meditation for this Sundays readings from 1999:

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Mass Readings:
Isa 55:10-11
Psalm 65:10-14
Rom 8:18-23
Matt 13:1-23

It is often said that God desires to speak to every person. But what is it like to listen to God's word? How should we respond when we hear Him speak? The parable of the Sower
and the Seed gives us Jesus' own wisdom on these questions. The Lord describes four stages in our response to God's word: Receive, Retain, Persevere, and Produce.
The first priority in responding to God's word is to receive the word in our hearts. If we just hear God's word, but do not listen to it, ponder it and take it into our hearts, then we will inevitably "lose" the word. It will be like seed sown on a path that is immediately snatched up by birds. Jesus warns us that this is not a simple case of forgetfulness, but a manifestation of the devil' s strategy to distract our hearts from divine things. God's word often comes as a "small voice" or "message" that pricks our conscience. When this happens, it is important to "welcome" the word-even taking time to write down what we think God is saying to us-so that
the word will take root in us and begin to grow.
The second priority in responding to God's word is to retain the word in our hearts. Trials inevitably come up that test our commitment to the Lord's word. If we fail to "hold on" to God's word, we are like the rocky soil on which the seed fell and sprouted briefly, only to wither for lack of roots. Retaining God's word involves more than simply hearing and remembering it. We need to let the word sink roots in us. This can be aided in two ways: first, by asking the Lord to explain what he is saying to us; second, by being obedient to what the Lord directs us to do. For instance, if God teaches us something about the saving power of Jesus' death, we should ask questions and seek deeper insight into this revelation. Or, if God tells us to be reconciled to someone, we should obey the prompting.
The third priority in responding to God's word is to persevere. In the long haul, what most corrodes the vitality of a Christian's life is often not direct persecution but the lure of money and anxiety over worldly affairs. These problems cannot be avoided; they are a part of life. But with strong faith and God's grace, we can persevere in the word and grow toward spiritual maturity.
The final priority in responding to God's word is to produce fruit. God does not speak to us just for our own personal benefit. He speaks to us so that His word will bear fruit for others in the revelation of His merciful love and glorious majesty. Today, as we listen to the Lord speak to us, let us pray that his word in us will bear fruit for the glory of God and the upbuilding of the Church.

Fr. Corapi on Pope Benedict and the Year of the Eucharist

2005-07-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

EWTN news has an article on an interview of Fr. Corapi that was done recently for Zenit.org Catholic news web site. It is a great interview on his insights on the new Pope and also the Year of the Eucharist. I loved this part of the interview where Fr. Corapi talks about Pope Benedict and his relationship with the Eucharist:

"Q: Benedict XVI, at the recent Eucharistic Congress in Italy, referred to "the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity." How can we seek union with other Christian faiths through the Eucharist?

Father Corapi: Benedict XVI, like all recent Popes, will continue to stress the Eucharist as a sacrament of unity. As the "Bread of Life" consists of many grains of wheat to make the one Bread, so the Eucharist ultimately will effect unity from the many individuals, religions, etc.
The Eucharist is the key to the realization of the "one Shepherd and one flock" that we must all pray for. However, between now and then there is a chasm that can be bridged by the Holy Spirit alone. We do our part, but it will be in God's time.
Jesus clearly reminded us "I have come not to bring peace but division ... that will separate a household of five, three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father..." What could the Prince of Peace mean by this? Precisely that the bold and clear proclamation of the truth will separate at first. We know this by common experience. Some accept it, some do not.
In order for the Eucharist to effect unity, Catholics must be Eucharistic people in fact, not merely in words. The gap between what we profess and what we live must be narrowed until the Eucharist is truly the veritable source, center and summit of each Catholic's life.
We must teach the doctrine of the Eucharist clearly and faithfully and then live it just as forcefully and purely. Then, when the world sees how we believe, live and love they will be drawn as to a magnet."

As you can read from the above and from the interview in its entirety, Fr. Corapi is devoted to the Eucharist as all priests should be. He states that he prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament all night before his ordination in Rome by Pope John Paul II. Great article, read it here:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=58241

Beautiful Catholic Wedding

2005-07-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

I went to a beautiful Catholic Wedding Mass over the weekend, it was full of great readings, a superb homily, a truly blessed wedding ceremony, great music (same man that played at my wedding :) and of course, the Eucharist. The priest that said the Mass and witnessed the wedding was a friend of the bride, so right there, you knew that he was going to put his heart and soul into the ceremony which he did, but also the reverence for the Catholic Mass that the two getting married had was very touching. I love going to Wedding Masses as they combine two great events, a wedding and the Mass. Sounds simple, but I believe that it is a blessing from God to be able to incorporate both into one Mass. The two people that got married are from my charismatic prayer group so a little bit of the charismatic praise and worship were brought into the Mass also. Even the reception had quite a few Christian surprises like a very nice good blessing by the Mass priest and a few Christian songs done as special remembrances of people. Unfortunately, I don't see any Catholic Wedding Masses in my future as I am getting to that age where all my friends who wanted to get married are and those that didn't get married probably are not going to get married. Well, God works in mysterious ways so who knows what he has in store. *

Cathechism's Compendium coming out soon

2005-06-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

The compendium of the Catholic Catechism is coming out soon. I hear it is much shorter than the Catechism, only around 70 pages in a dialogue manner of writing. Should be really good to show to friends and family that are either not Catholic or very marginally Catholic and don't want to look at the whole Catechism, Here's the link to the news from EWTN:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=57723

Pope news

2005-06-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

The Pope has done several things this week that merits attention. First is his exhortation to parents to teach their children about the Sunday Mass and make the Mass a joyful need. It should be the parents' primary role to teach their children about the Sunday Mass in a loving and nurturing way. The parent's love for the eucharist needs to shine brightly and not hidden under a lamp. Her is the link:
Pope's news

Also, Did you hear about the story of the Pope talking to the ill nun on a cell phone? I love this story and wanted to share it with you all. Pope Benedict XVI shows his love for others in this touching story of him reaching out to all. Here are some pictures of this story:
Pope and the cell phone

Catholic Young Adults walking for Life

2005-06-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

50 Young Adults are walking this summer to share the Pro-Life message to the United States. 3 groups are walking part of the country to stand up for Life and for the dignity of all people. I think this is a great idea, I will have to watch Life on the Rock for updates this summer, I hope they make this into a series like Onward Pilgrims, I would love seeing that, Real "Reality TV" :)

EWTN link to the article here

New priests are breath of fresh air

2005-06-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

I attended the first Mass of a new priest in the Diocese of San Jose at my parish because my family befriended this priest when he was a seminarian at our parish a few years ago. It was a moving experience for me as I am sure I saw Christ's love while watching this priest say his first Mass. Knowing that this was the first time that he was using his priestly vocation at Mass, being a shepherd during the Liturgy of the Word and then being the one to turn the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus for the first time, it was truly a special event in the Catholic Church. My Diocese ordained 5 new priests on Saturday and I am happy that we got so many new priests, I got to know 3 of these men because 2 were at my parish and the third because of my time with him during a seminarian dinner my parish hosted. I know these 3 men are ready to serve the Church, to be shepherds for the people and to share God's love with all they meet. May God bless these new priests and may he continue to touch their hearts so they can minister to the Church as Christ would minister to the Church. I am optimistic of the Church's future and for the return of priestly vocations, although I don't think we may ever have as many as before unless we get a shift in the number of children that are born in the world.

God's best Food - Corpus Christi

2005-05-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-21T01:20:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

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

2005-05-04T03:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Pope Benedict XVI

2005-04-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

I am so glad that we have a great new Pope!! Pope Benedict XVI will be a great continuation of Pope John Paul II's work. My wife and I were very excited when we heard he was the next Pope while we watched the TV and EWTN simultaneously from our hotel room during our vacation. EWTN was from the computer, we turned off the TV's volume and listened to EWTN while watching the big picture from TV network. Pope Benedict will definitely be a shot in the arm that the papacy needed ever since Pope JPII's decline in the last few months. As Pope Benedict XVI has said many times already, we need to pray for him that he can do the work God wants him to do.

Visited St. Boniface in Anaheim and it is a great church

2005-04-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

I was in Anaheim this weekend with my family and we decided to go to the 11 AM Mass at St. Boniface in Anaheim. What a terrific Mass it was, an almost perfect Vatican II Mass in every way. The Church is very beautiful with stained glass windows of the Seven Sacraments and then mosaics of the Stations of the Cross and what looked like the Mysteries of the Rosary. It also has a very beautiful organ and the cantor woman was excellent also. The homily was half done by a seminarian named Benedict and before someone gets into this discussion, let me say that orthodox seminarians have to give these homilies or they will be shown the door, so I would rather have them do the homilies and become priests, then lose them and just have the progressive priests. The seminarian gave a wonderful "talk" on what it means to be a Catholic - "to believe that Jesus Christ is our one and only Savior, and that he is THE only gate to the Father" and to believe in the teachings of the Catholic faith given to us by nearly 2000 years of prayerful men and women guided by the Holy Spirit. Thank you St. Boniface Church for being the Catholic voice in the entertainment mecca that is Anaheim. Here is their link:
http://www.rc.net/orange/stboniface/

John Paul II's priests

2005-04-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this article about the priests that were ordained during Pope John Paul II time as Pope:
http://www.duluth.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=197869

My prayer is that when these priests become pastors and leaders in the Church, they will influence even more young men to become priests and then we can slowly remove ourselves from the dwindling priest crisis. Young men will listen to these priests and see the conviction of their calling, the conviction that Pope John Paul II instilled in them through his words and actions. Let us also pray that our next Pope will also be strong in conviction and also be a beacon of light for the young especially those who have heard a calling to religious life.

Saw my daughter in a beautiful Musical, "Feast of Life"

2005-04-10T02:02:00.000-07:00

My daughter who is an older elementary school child has been practicing with a small group of girls for a musical play since October. I didn't know much about the play before the performances except that it was based on the Gospel of Luke. Their performances were on Friday and Saturday and I have to say it was very lovely and very moving, especially so I would think for younger children who sometimes do not understand the gospel scriptures. Here is a description of the play I found on the internet:

The Feast of Life reminds us of the fourteen banquets mentioned in Luke's Gospel and invites us once again to hear and experience the stories of Jesus. In this musical by Marty Haugen, a diverse group of adults and children gather around a banquet table to retell the parables in Luke's Gospel. The group tells and sings of "The Good Samaritan," "The Prodigal Son," "The Journey to Emmaus," and other parables, as well as the birth and the Passion of Jesus.

The play my daughter did had no banquet table or adults; however, they did have some props and some dancers to liven it up a little. I know some of you bloggers look down on Marty Haugen's music, but I think the music in the play was very nice for kids and adults also. I am sure my daughter learned a lot about the Gospel of Luke, although, I bet she knew most of the stories already because of all the christian videos we have that have touched on these stories from Gospel of Luke - but the time she spent on the play have reinforced her learning. I would love to see this musical done at more Catholic schools so that Catholic students can hear the Gospel of Luke at their level and maybe even produce a desire to delve more into the scriptures.

PS. I saw the first mass of the 9 days of mourning this morning on EWTN and I was happy to hear the priest tell the stories about the Pope, personal stories because he was good friends with the Pope since the Pope was only a bishop. The personal insight was very nice, I hope the other 8 homilists can share their personal stories of the Pope also.

My parish's Memorial Mass for Pope John Paul II

2005-04-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

I attended my parish's Memorial Mass for Pope John Paul II and it was a very nice Mass. I really enjoyed the readings picked for the Mass, though I do not know who picked them. First reading was from Isaiah 41:8-13. Second reading was from 2nd letter to Timothy, chapter 4:1-8. The gospel was from John chapter 21:15-17.

Here is Isaiah 41:8-13

8But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my friend--
9You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and summoned from its far-off places, You whom I have called my servant, whom I have chosen and will not cast off--
10Fear not, I am with you; be not dismayed; I am your God. I will strengthen you, and help you, and uphold you with my right hand of justice.
11Yes, all shall be put to shame and disgrace who vent their anger against you; Those shall perish and come to nought who offer resistance.
12You shall seek out, but shall not find, those who strive against you; They shall be as nothing at all who do battle with you.
13For I am the LORD, your God, who grasp your right hand; It is I who say to you, "Fear not, I will help you."

Pope John Paul II was indeed God's servant and he heard God's voice as he always told people "Be not Afraid" because John Paul II knew that God was with him and is with us. God strengthened him and helped him and he was victorious over nay-sayers.

Here is 2 Tim 4:1-8 :

1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who willjudge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power:
2proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
3For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers
4and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.
5But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.
6 For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.
8 From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance.

If that doesn't sound like modern times, I don't know what does - people finding their own teachers and going away from truth and follow myths. And who did what Paul asked? Of course, Pope John Paul II and he also did what Paul did. He put up with hardship, he was an evangelist and fulfilled his ministry and kept proclaiming the truth. He finished the race and competed very well and of course kept the faith and is now rewarded by the Lord, a place in heaven.

The gospel reading is when the glorified Jesus asks Peter three times, do you love me? Then feed my sheep. As Pope John Paull II is a direct descendant of Pope Peter, Jesus also asked John Paul II the same thing, and John Paul did feed his sheep even though he was a sinful man just like you and me (yes, Popes are sinners too, hopefully not very good sinners :) . The Pope's main job is to feed his (Jesus') sheep. I think all would agree that John Paul II did that in abundance.

We should all pray that the new Pope will embrace these three scriptures and be the Servant of God who preaches the truth and feeds the flock with truth and love.

More comments on Pope John Paul II

2005-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

I was talking about the Pope to my daughter ad said that if he was to be a saint, he would probably have his feast day as April 2nd. But I was thinking that it would be more appropriate if his feast day was near divine Mercy Sunday since we all now he had a great love for Divine Mercy Sunday and Sr. Faustina. So it came to me that it would be great if they did something very unusual about his feast day and assigned his feast day to the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday - I know that would mean it would be a different day every year but I think that would be very neat, a moving feast day!!

It was amazing to see the number of people coming to St. Peter's to view the Pope's body. I wonder if this is the most people ever to view a body before a funeral. Though you would think that some leader in China or India might have had a lot of people also. I know a lot of people saw Lincoln's body but his was a little different as his body traveled the country, I heard that Teddy Roosevelt saw his body as a young child in New York.

Saint John Paul the Great

2005-04-03T00:10:00.000-08:00

The Catholic Church has lost one of its all-time leaders and his presence will be missed - even his presence as an invalid old man that showed strength through his suffering. Pope John Paul II was the perfect pope for Vatican II, he was the Holy Father that could bring the Church into the 21st Century and he did it with charisma, political will, unwavering faith and an outstanding prayer. Pope John Paul II died on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday and I do think that was planned by the Pope, he held on to life so he could die on Mercy Sunday, a day he implemented in the Church to honor one of fellow poles, Sr. Faustina. Can you imagine the welcoming party in heaven as all the Saints line up to greet John Paul II? It would be a big event in heaven. I also think the Pope planned out his long serene slow death at the Vatican. He knew the cable news would be with him during his slow path to death, and what does that mean? 24 hour exposure on Cable news channels for the Catholic Church mostly positive stuff (all positive for Fox News). I will Pope John Paul II, but he is in a better place and he can now be an intercessory to Jesus for all of us. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide the Cardinals to pick a Pope that can continue Pope John Paul II's legacy.

How I caught the Catholic blogging bug

2005-03-30T01:01:00.000-08:00

I really don't remember how exactly I started reading Catholic blogs but I think it was from looking at Envoy magazine's blog, Encore Envoy, and I think in that blog, it made reference to St. Blog's parish, a list of Catholic blogs and I was hooked. It is very interesting to see people's opinions on the news of the day with a Catholic perspective, especially reading the broad spectrum of Catholic opinion from the traditionalists to the radical reformers. I enjoy reading all of them; however, since I describe myself as a play-by-the-law Vatican II Catholic, I am somewhat in the middle but probably more leaning to conservative side of the Catholic spectrum. I am pro-life, anti death penalty, pro Social Justice as it pertains to the poor and needy and pro EWTN. However, I am also a Charismatic Catholic, I have been involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal for about 14 years now and belong to a Charismatic community that is strictly Catholic. As to the Catholic blogs, I especially enjoy the blogs that some of the priests are doing, especially Catholic Ragemonkey and Saintly Salmagundi, but I also like Amy Welborn's Open book and Bett net - and I read Joe Cecil's blog to get the progressive angle on things.
I wanted to start my own blog thinking it would be interesting, but I have already come to find out it is hard work to come up with interesting things to put in your blog. Hopefully I get some inspiration on topics and such.

Happy Easter

2005-03-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

It's been a long Easter day for me, getting up at 6 AM to make it to the 8 AM mass with my daughter. But Easter is the greatest day for Catholics as without Easter, there would be no Catholic Church, the whole Church is based on Christ and his resurrection that gave us new life and a way to heaven. Alleluia! The mass this morning was packed and I always pray that the people who only come on Easter Sunday will be blessed by the Holy Spirit to start attending Mass regularly. Easter is new life in Christ!! Please remember also that the Easter season is 50 days long, so celebrate Easter for that many days!!

Pope's suffering is an example for all of us to follow

2005-03-26T08:49:00.000-08:00

I watched the Way of the Cross from Rome on EWTN yesterday and I saw the Pope watching it from his "wheelchair" and it made me sad at first to see him in that state, but then I remembered that he is giving his suffering up for the Church and especially for those who are in a similar state, the disabled and the sickly elderly. The reality of this current world is that there will be a big increase in the disabled and sickly elderly as the Baby Boomers finally get to their golden years and medical science helps them to live but does not remove the illness and disease that will come to them. I have already been exposed to this through my wife's parents, her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about 5 years ago and died last year of prostrate cancer and now her mother has Alzheimer's and is in a Alzheimer's facility a mile from our house. We visit her often and are sadden to see her in her confused state, but we love her and want her last years to be peaceful and as healthy and positive as she can be in her current diseased state. I believe the Pope is trying to impress upon the world that we need to see the disabled and sickly elderly with respect and with love. He wants us to know that these people deserve a chance to live out their lives with as much dignity and care as anyone else, even a Pope. I pray that the world will understand what the Pope is trying to tell us through his last days on this earth and that we will turn our focus on helping the elderly live a productive life even in a diseased state that may come about.
Happy Easter to everyone - May Jesus' resurrection show us that all people, even the disabled and sickly elderly, will rise again after death and meet Jesus at the gates. God bless.

Holy Thursday Mass is awe-inspiring

2005-03-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

I went to the Holy Thursday Mass at my parish tonight and it was an awe-inspiring ceremony. I think Holy Thursday is probably the second best Mass of the year after Easter Vigil. At our parish, we have a ceremony with the new oils - the oils that will be used for sacraments throughout the year. Then we have the priests being servants and washing peoples feet - it is great symbolism on the role of priests as servant of all just like Jesus was. Then at the end of Mass, the altar is stripped bare and the eucharist is brought to the Community Center where a very nice altar is set up there. There is a procession that follows the priest so we can all adore Jesus.

U.S. Bishops start campaign to end Death Penalty

2005-03-24T00:33:00.000-08:00

I saw news that the U.S. bishops started a campaign to end the death penalty in the United States. I am glad, as a pro-life Catholic, it pains me that my country still puts people to death when it is not needed. I am glad that the statistics show that more Catholics in this country want the death penalty stopped also. All the arguments for the death penalty are not even true, no death row prisoner would ever be let out of jail because of parole, it doesn't cost less to keep prisoner for his/her lifetime because of the costly death penalty appeals, and it isn't a deterrent for criminals. Also, it is shocking how many people are on death row even though they were convicted with just circumstantial evidence. Take Scott Peterson for instance, even if we think he is guilty, no one knows for sure because there isn't super solid evidence against him. And even if he did kill his wife, how do we know it wasn't out of rage and not even premeditated. I pray that there will be a ground swell of support for this and we can convince even the Republicans to vote against the death penalty. Here is the link to the US Catholic Bishop's web site that tells of the campaign: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2005/05-064.shtml

Parish Seder celebrations was a joy once again

2005-03-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

I attended my parish's Seder celebration once again this year and it was a joy to be there. For those who don't know, a Seder is the celebration of Jewish Passover, the re-living of the story of Moses saving the Israelites from Egypt. Our parish combines the traditional Jewish Seder, prayers and food, with the rich symbolism of Jesus in the Passover and as the Lamb of God. It is well done and a good way to start off Holy Week - it is done on Monday of Holy Week, probably due to the Seder being celebrated on the 1st day of the seven day feast - the last day being Easter. The Eucharist was first given at a Passover meal so it is only fitting that Catholics learn about Passover so they can learn more about the Eucharist and about Jesus' sacrifice for us. I would recommend that all Catholic Parishes start a Seder celebration during Lent. Here is a link to information on Seder from a Jewish perspective: http://www.holidays.net/passover/seder.html