Daily Prayer for Priest O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church ... give us holy priests. You yourself maintain them in holiness.
O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares, which are continually being set for the souls of priests.
May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring the naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priest, for You can do all things. - St. Faustina (Diary, 1052)
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My Dear People,
Following the great feast of Easter, Pentecost is second in importance to the growth of the Church. Jesus promised his Apostles that He would send them the Paraclete. The Holy Ghost would teach them all things necessary for the birthing of the Church at its earliest beginnings. We see the dramatic effect of this grace when Peter stands up to proclaim the Good News about Jesus Christ. Leaving the closed doors of the upper room where the Apostles were huddled together for “fear” of the Jews, our first Pope now boldly proclaims Jesus Christ. There were devout men and women of every race who understood Peter’s preaching, and came to believe in the Holy Name of Jesus.
The same Holy Spirit that poured out over St. Peter, came to rest upon them. We have been given that same Spirit at Baptism and Confirmation. Do you use these gifts regularly? Are you exercising these gifts for the glory of God? Do you know what gifts you have been given? If you are unsure, ask the Holy Ghost to come into your heart and mind in a new way this Pentecost. Ask Him to teach you all things necessary to return safely home to Heaven. If you ask, you shall receive.
Entrusting you to the care of Our Lady,
Fr. Mark Bozada
May we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us on our stewardship journey.
Priests and Fathers Must Make Heroic Sacrifices.
Father James Farfaglia-During the height of the Vietnam War, an Afro-American second lieutenant led his small company on a patrol through the jungle. As they were making their way through the dense tangle of trees and vines, he suddenly noticed that a sniper had dropped a grenade in the middle of his men. Without hesitation the second lieutenant pounced on the grenade and saved his company by sacrificing his own life. Shortly after this incident, President Nixon awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously, which was presented to his mother.
Perhaps we will never be in a situation to sacrifice our lives as heroically as the second lieutenant did. However, it is quite possible that he was able to make the supreme sacrifice of himself, because his entire life was made up of many heroic moments of self-giving.
Anyone who wants to live true Christianity is called to live selflessly. What father who really loves his family will complain about the daily sacrifices that he must make to support his family? Will a Catholic priest, enamored of his priestly calling, not be filled with a profound joy as he gives himself untiringly to his parish family?
As I explained in my new book Man to Man: A Real Priest Speaks to Real Men about Marriage, Sexuality and Family Life [1], some men are called to be fathers of a family through the sacrament of marriage, and there are men who are called to be fathers of an immensely large family through the sacrament of Holy Orders. Fatherhood demands total self-giving.
True fathers will understand that parenting goes far beyond simply feeding their children and filling their day with hours of mindless television. True priests will always devote large amounts of time each week to preparing good Sunday homilies; to being available to meet the needs of their people; and to taking the time to visit the homebound and the sick in the hospitals. But if homes are abandoned because fathers are more concerned about their careers than their children, and if parishes are abandoned because the spiritual fathers are more concerned about their free time and entertainment than the souls entrusted to them, then it is no wonder that so many Americans wander aimlessly about seeking affection, love, direction, purpose and companionship?
Married love and celibate love can only be understood within the dimension of total donation of self. Selfishness will prevent us from the giving of ourselves unconditionally. If we live selfish lives, we will not experience the profound joy of Christianity.
Selflessness demands commitment. Commitment demands maturity, sacrifice, and a lot of love. Commitment means we have the ability to make a definitive decision and never think twice about the path that we have chosen.
Commitment means that we will follow through with the consequences of that decision through the difficult moments and the tedium of daily existence.
Immature men are incapable of making life-long decisions. Moreover, they are incapable of sacrifice, incapable of fidelity, and incapable of love. Only mature men are capable of these things.
Fatherhood demands responsibility. Every father who is a true man will be responsible for all of his actions. Today, most people escape responsibility by blaming their parents or society for the reasons as to why they behave the way they do. Although it is true that certain situations do influence our personal baggage that we carry through life, playing the blame game is self-indulgence and an escape from reality. With God’s grace and personal effort, every problem has a solution.
Our contemporary culture has an urgent need for men who want to be real men; men capable of making definitive decisions and carrying them through no matter what obstacles may come their way. Our society needs men who are generous, self-giving, honest, industrious, sensitive to the needs of others and well mannered; men who dress appropriately; men who are capable of an intelligent conversation with their wives, their co-workers and their friends.
Fathers, pray for the strength to be the man God intends for you to be. That goes for Priests and Dads. (slight editing by Jeff Gares)
To read entire article, click here.
Times of Malta.com – Cohabiting couples should not receive Holy Communion, the Bishops of Malta and Gozo said in a joint statement today.
Reacting to questions raised recently in the media, the bishops said the Church loved such couples in the same way as it loved all its members. It would continue to offer them spiritual help and it encouraged them to go to Mass and participate in the life of the Church.
“However, the Catholic Church insists that couples who live together without being married should not receive Holy Communion.
“The Church does not impose this as a punishment, but because the way of life of such people goes against the sacrament of marriage,” the bishops said.
Furthermore, the bishops said, such behaviour went against Church teaching that those who received the Eucharist had to be one in unity with Christ and the Church.
The Church set up by Christ, had to be a faithful witness of such teaching through its members, the bishops said.
They added that some people were paying a high price to remain in communion with the Church despite having suffered marriage breakdown, and they had stayed away from a relationship with another person outside marriage.
Therefore, separated persons who were not in a relationship with someone else, could still receive Holy Communion.
The Bishops said they were urging couples who were cohabiting without being married to look at the teaching of the Church, renew their confidence in God’s mercy, and seek conversion.
My Dear People,
The Needs of the Church Are Given Through the Holy Spirit
The Ascension of Our Lord marked the beginning of the Church in transition. The Apostles, led by St. Peter, were given the charge to care for the needs of the community of believers. On Pentecost, all of the gifts necessary for its administration, were given to the Apostles. When the church began to grow, it’s needs followed. The glory of Jesus’ Ascension permeated this growth process. We still benefit form this charism today.
The royal glory of the Ascension fills our minds and hearts every time we ask for it. We are a royal priesthood; a people set apart. What a privilege it is to bear the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pray to remain holy. Pray to remain in God’s glory. Pray to stay in His Peace.
Entrusting you to the care of Our Lady,
Fr. Mark Bozada
May we learn to put God first in our lives, realizing that we are called to be His hands and feet here on earth.
MO Priest calls Pope Benedict, Bishops and the Faithful,
“Faithless and Hypocritical,” and “Whitewashed Sepulchers”
Fr. Wissman in Bolivar, MO writes in his parish bulletin some of the most outlandish comments. It is hard to believe he but it in writing. Fr. Z takes issue with the post and shares his thoughts. Of course Fr. Z comments are in red.
Dear Parishioners,
Happy Pentecost! The Easter Season comes to a final crescendo with this glorious feast! The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Holy Trinity which we seem to neglect. [Really?] But still, the age we live in since the Ascension is the AGE of the Spirit. [Hmmm….] It was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that Vatican Council II happened. History making and world shaking, the Church came up to date under the Spirit’s guidance. [I think you are getting a sense of this fellow’s age and basic formation.] The history of the Church since those moments is the successful or unsuccessful implementation of that wonderful coming together of the Church. [Here we go…] Those who have resisted the Council have resisted the Spirit. [Is that so? Fr. Wissman knows this? We can at least affirm that Council’s are guided by the Holy Spirit when they, with the Bishop of Rome, teach concerning faith and morals. In Acts 15:28 we read, "It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us …." But when the matter does not have to do with faith and morals, does the Holy Spirit guide a Council? Also, the Second Vatican Council is considered a "pastoral", rather than "dogmatic" or "doctrinal" Council, even though it issued a "dogmatic constitution". What does that mean for the involvement of the Holy Spirit.] It is sad [Get this…] that the implementation did not take place in many places and that [!] has led to a great decline in true membership in the church and the increase of the powers of divergence from the Kingdom of God. [This is loaded with problems, as I am sure you have already seen. First, the writer wants you to accept a premise: problems have come about in the Church where the Council was not implemented. On the other hand, "Council" – especially from a liberal – could mean just about anything, including suggestions that have nothing to do with the Council’s documents. I suspect that the shift above from the use of "Holy Spirit" to just "Spirit" in relation to inspiration for the Council was telling. Next, what does "true membership" mean? Is he suggesting, for example, that there is some sort of additional litmus text, known to the writer. This smacks of gnosticism. Notice also that phrase "powers of divergence". I think that means any influence exerted by anyone who does not share the writer’s outdated and rigid understanding of the Council. And note that the writer seems also to have insight not only into "true membership" but also who belongs to the "Kingdom of God". This goes beyond pompous to dangerously judgmental.]
In the United States, however, for the most part the implementation took root and has made the U.S. Catholic Church very vital and a shining example of true Christianity. [Has the writer not reviewed lately statistics about Mass attendance, use of the sacrament of penance, marriage, and belief in doctrines of the Church? Unless, though it is hard to imagine this, the plummeting statistics are what he is talking about.] The recent efforts of faithless and hypocritical people to make the church go backward are ill conceived and will fail. [So, anyone who has what Pope John Paul II referred do as a "legitimate aspiration" is faithless and hypocritical. Benedict XVI is also "faithless and hypocritical" by the fact of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum and his statements about "continuity" and the clear explanation that what was sacred in the past is sacred also now.] What a mistake it was for the Pope (who had the best of intentions) to lift a ban on those reactionary groups who want a dead church of Latin language and a rejection of Vatican II. [Once again, the example of a liberal who invokes a Council he has never read: Latin remains the language of the liturgy, something required by the Second Vatican Council. Furthermore, the word "ban" is inaccurate. The writer is no doubt poorly imformed.] One of the Bishops of one group even publicly takes a stand saying that the Holocaust is a myth. [That would be SSPX Bp. Williamson. Now get this…] These people [He is no longer talking about just SSPX Bp. Williamson…] who may appear very pious (as the Pharisees did!) are really whitewashed sepulchers (to use the words of Jesus). [I think he just called John Paul II, Pope Benedict, every bishop who has ever granted use of the older Mass, or participated in one, every priest who uses the older forms and all the lay people who desire the opportunity to participate in the older forms… or even in the Novus Ordo in Latin… "whitewashed sepulchers". Does that set well with you? Does that set well with the Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau? I think I recently saw His Eminence Card. Baum at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on 24 April – a former bishop of the writer’s diocese – participating at a Pontifical Mass with the older form. He must be a "whitewashed sepulcher" also.]
The Holy Spirit always leads us into the future, not into the past. [What confused claptrap. The writer pretends to know what the motions and urgings of the Holy Spirit are. This is part of the writer’s gnostic approach.] As we celebrate this faith-moment honoring God, the Holy Spirit let us be aware that trust as well as faith is needed…trust in the leadership of the Holy Spirit, trust in the Spirit’s healing powers as well as creativity under the Spirit’s egis. [sic]
It is the Spirit who guards the church from the powers of hell. [Not content with "powers of divergence", now he refers to anyone who has a vision that differs from his own as "powers of hell".] Jesus tells us: fear not, the Father will send you the Spirit… The great and powerful God the Spirit blows throughout the universe seeking souls open to the new creation, seeking hearts open to its promptings, seeking to uphold those whose knees are weak and confirming those who seek God. And it is not just the Catholic Church that is gifted with the Holy Spirit. Every good inspiration, every good act, every humble prayer has as its source the one and same Spirit. All religions ancient and new are impacted by the Spirit and are made ready for advancement toward truth, unity and peace. ["Not just the Catholic Church… all religions…"]
Blessings!
Fr Pat
From Drug Addicted Pagan To A Priest Of Mercy!
Heroine, cocaine, opium, marijuana, excessive alcohol, not to mention hallucinogenic drugs like mushrooms (psilocybin) and LSD – he consumed most of these before the age of 18, many before he turned 14, the addictions growing stronger as the existential emptiness deepened. What sounds like an introduction to a Hunter S. Thompson novel actually constitutes the autobiography of a Catholic priest. Fr. Donald Calloway of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception retells his dramatic and heart-wrenching life story in No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy.
As a destructive youth, Calloway spent his adolescence succumbing to temptations large and small, from sins of the flesh with constant promiscuity, to crimes against the law with thousands of dollars of grand theft in stolen merchandise, as well as nightly partying with friends consuming all forms of drugs and addictives while listening to heavy-metal music.
To continue reading Father Calloway’s conversion story, click here.
Sister Margaret McBride Could Be
Dismissed From Religious Order
- Bishop Thomas Olmsted is helping St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center to realize what a Catholic Hospital really is.
(CNA/EWTN News) Phoenix - A religious sister who was on a Catholic hospital panel that approved a direct abortion has excommunicated herself, the Diocese of Phoenix said on Tuesday. According to the diocese, Sr. Margaret McBride told Bishop Olmsted that she believed performing an abortion in a specific case from 2009 “was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching.”
 Sr. Margaret McBride, RSM The abortion took place late last year at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. The mother was 11 weeks pregnant and was seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension, a condition worsened and possibly made fatal by pregnancy, according to the Washington Post.
An ethics committee which included doctors and hospital administrator Sr. Margaret McBride ruled that the abortion was necessary. Sr. McBride has been reassigned from her job as vice president of mission integration at the hospital.
In a Tuesday “Questions & Answers” document, the Diocese of Phoenix’s Office of Communications explained that Sr. McBride “held a position of authority at the hospital and was frequently consulted on ethical matters.”
The diocese stated that she was excommunicated because “she gave her consent that the abortion was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching. Furthermore, she admitted this directly to Bishop Olmsted. Since she gave her consent and encouraged an abortion she automatically excommunicated herself from the Church.”
The diocese added that canon law requires an excommunicated member of a religious community be dismissed from religious life unless his or her superior decides that dismissal is not completely necessary and that correction, restitution of justice and reparation of scandal can be sufficiently resolved in another way.
In addition, the diocese said that in this situation it was “clear” that St. Joseph’s Hospital was “not faithful to Catholic moral teaching” as outlined in the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs). Catholic Healthcare West, the hospital system of which St. Joseph’s is a part, has not followed the ERDs in at least one of their institutions, Chandler Regional Hospital.
According to the diocese, Bishop of Phoenix Thomas Olmsted is attempting to work with the hospital to help them fulfill requirements of self-identified Catholic institutions.
Father Roger Landry-A few weeks ago, when I began this miniseries on St. John Vianney as a confessor, I asked why so many men and women from throughout France made enormous sacrifices to get to the barely accessible hamlet of Ars to go to confession. I replied at the time with the words of one of the several hundred thousand reconciled sinners who had made such a pilgrimage: they came to Ars because there was something truly special about the confessor. They believed they were encountering “God in a man,” someone whose radiant holiness gave them a glimpse of the irresistible beauty of God’s merciful love.
That explanation is no doubt true from the subjective perspective of many of the penitents. But I don’t think it’s an exhaustive explanation. While only God knows all the reasons why St. John Vianney’s confessional was teeming while so many other confessionals in France were vacant, it seems plausible that the fundamental reason was that God himself was drawing them there. I like to think, moreover, that one of the reasons God was moving his sons and daughters to confess to this simple priest in a tiny village was because St. John Vianney “earned” and “deserved” them far more than other priests.
God, who cannot be outdone in generosity, seemed reward the constant prayers and heroic sacrifices of St. John Vianney for the conversion of others. Just as no other confessor in history has heard so many confessions for so many years as the Curé of Ars, so probably no other priest prayed and sacrificed as much for the conversion necessary to bring sinners to the confessional.
“I can’t stop praying for poor sinners who are on the road to hell,” he once said. “If they come to die in that state, they will be lost for all eternity. What a pity! We have to pray for sinners!” He said that praying for sinners was the “most beautiful and useful of prayers” because “the just are on the way to heaven, the souls of purgatory are sure to enter there, but the poor sinners” will be lost forever. He said that all devotions are good but “there is no better one” than such prayer for sinners.
“What souls we can convert by our prayers,” he said on another occasion. Paraphrasing the Lord’s words to the Prophet Ezekiel, he added, “The one who saves a soul from hell saves this soul and his own as well.”
When he talked about praying for sinners, he wasn’t describing merely a short invocation, but a serious program of persistent supplication. When a parishioner asked him how more effectively to pray for sinners, the patron saint of priests responded with a list of things that seem to have an autobiographical tone to them. “One can offer himself as a victim for 8-15 days for the conversion of sinners. One can suffer cold, heat, deprive oneself of looking at something, go visit someone who would appreciate it, make a novena, attend daily Mass for this intention in places where it is possible. Not only would one contribute to God’s glory by this holy practice [of praying for sinners], but one would obtain an abundance of grace.”
He prayed so much and so insistently precisely because he was convinced that the conversion of some from the state of mortal sin to grace was a true miracle that only God can work. “A great miracle is needed to raise a poor soul in that state,” he taught in one of his catechism lessons. “Yes, a greater miracle than what the Lord did to raise Lazarus!” To resuscitate a dead body pales, he thought, to resurrecting a soul from death.
St. John Vianney’s existence, like Christ’s before him, became one great prayer for the miracle of the conversion of sinners. “I am only content,” he said, “when I’m praying for sinners.” One of the reasons for his was that he knew, by what seems to be a divine intimation, that such prayer pleased God immensely. “The good God has made me see,” he said to one of his friends, “how much he loves that I pray for poor sinners. … I don’t know if it were really a voice I heard or a dream, but, whatever it was, it woke me up and told me that to save a soul in the state of sin is more pleasing to God than all sacrifices. For that reason, I do all my resolutions for penance.”
His heroic praying for sinners was the prehistory for so many of the miracles of conversion that took place in his confessional. His confessional had the longest continuous lines in Church history because he prayed more than anyone in history that people would get in that line of salvation.
His example is an inspiration to all priests and faithful to imitate him in this prayer. The same Lord who was pleased to answer his persevering pleas so lavishly stands ready to respond to ours.
(edited by Jeff Gares)
Shockingly, A Mother Has An Abortion
In A Catholic Hospital Because Of
The Advice Of A Catholic Nun
- Sister Margaret McBride Resigns
- St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center Defends Their Actions
AP
PHOENIX — A nun and administrator at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix has been reassigned and rebuked by the local bishop for agreeing that a severely ill woman needed an abortion to survive.
 Sister Margaret McBride was on an ethics committee that included doctors that consulted with a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant late last year, The Arizona Republic newspaper reported on its website Saturday. The woman was suffering from a life-threatening condition that likely would have caused her death if she hadn’t had the abortion at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.
Hospital officials defended McBride’s actions but confirmed that she has been reassigned from her job as vice president of mission integration at the hospital. They said in a statement that saving the mother required that the fetus be aborted.
“In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother’s life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy,” hospital vice president Susan Pfister said in an e-mail to the newspaper. She said the facility owned by Catholic Healthcare West adheres to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services but that the directives do not answer all questions.
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, indicated in a statement that the Roman Catholic involved was “automatically excommunicated” because of the action. The Catholic Church allows the termination of a pregnancy only as a secondary effect of other treatments, such as radiation of a cancerous uterus.
“I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese,” Olmsted said in a statement sent to The Arizona Republic. “I am further concerned by the hospital’s statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother’s underlying medical condition.
“An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.”
Olmsted added that if a Catholic “formally cooperates” in an abortion, he or she is automatically excommunicated.
Neither the hospital nor the bishop’s office would say if Olmsted had a direct role in her demotion. He does not have control of the hospital as a business but is the voice of moral authority over any Catholic institution operating in the diocese.
The patient, who hasn’t been identified, was seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension. The condition limits the ability of the heart and lungs to function and is made worse, possibly even fatal, by pregnancy.
“This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee, of which Sr. Margaret McBride is a member,” the hospital said in a statement issued Friday.
A letter sent to Olmsted Monday by the board chairwoman and the president and CEO of CHW asks Olmsted to provide further clarification about the directives. The pregnancy, the letter says, carried a nearly certain risk of death for the mother.
“If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it,” the letter says. “We are convinced there was not.”
McBride declined to comment.
Father Dwight Longenecker-Some days when celebrating Mass every word seems to surge into an extra dimension. It seems that the full depth of every word is somehow opening up to my mind and heart, and through the mystery of language we are transcending language. Then the loveliness of liturgy reveals its true power. These are not words I have made up. They are words that I have been given by my Holy Mother the Church. These words connect through me and past me to every priest everywhere today who has said Mass, and if this is so, then they connect me in an almost tangible cord to every priest everywhere down the ages who has said these words and been, through his ordination, configured to Christ.
It is as though the words are the leaves and the branches and that through them we have access through the trunk of history to the roots of all–to the ‘dearest, freshness, deep down things.’ You could say the specific is the key to the universal, the particular opens the door to the general. And this is the lesson of incarnation, that the Divine has become Man, that the Cosmic has entered the Chaos, that the General has become particular in one young girl, one pregnancy, one birth, one life, one death, one resurrection and because of this particular all has opened back out into the general so that through this Paschal and Eucharistic Mystery all shall live.
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