Spiritual Vitamins: A TO Z

Remember to take your vitamins every day!

Joel Osteen’s Daily Readings from “Your Best Life Now”

Instead of picking up the whole book, I got the ‘Daily Readings from Your Best Life Now’ – with 90 Devotions, all bite sized and packaged for the reader to do one daily.

This book is especially good for everyone who complains about the lack of time – reading a “chapter” should take you a few minutes.

Yet even in those few minutes, you will get handfuls of encouragement, edification and ample good advice – everything Pastor Joel Osteen has become synonymous with.

I was especially happy with the book for two reasons:

The first was that it’s easily available in India – Hachette India sells the same for Rs. 525/- I had earlier bought Osteen’s other book ‘Become a Better You’ at three times the price off the internet (of course, that was the entire book and a hard cover as compared to this book’s soft cover).

The second is because its reading’s size makes it a good gift option for most people: I gifted it to my mother who loves it so much that she’s bought copies to gift too. And it’s always a great feeling when you gift someone a book & they love it!

3 Mistakes I’ve made at Mass

(01) Come in Late: Can you imagine if you were given the chance to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama? Regardless of what your political views are, it would be a great honor & opportunity that no one would miss. Most likely, you’d pick your clothes out carefully, if you’re a woman, you’d probably also get your hair done, you’d ‘casually’ let it slip that you were going to meet the president (or perhaps not so casually, by blogging about it!). Whatever you’d do however, this is one thing you would not do: you would not be late.

You’d probably even be very early, just so that you could get a good place if possible & to make sure the security checks didn’t make you run behind time. All this to meet with a human being.

And when we’re given the Amazing, Miraculous, Divine honor & opportunity to meet with & receive Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of Mass, what do we do?

Often times we do it on automatic, routinely, just doing what we have to do to complete an obligation. I’ve been late to Mass one time too many. If I say I love the Lord and if I truly believe He’s really present during Mass, then how can I be late, no matter what the human justification?

To combat this area, I now pick out my clothes the night before (helps especially since I go for an early Mass on Sunday). I also aim to reach church a whole 15 minutes before Mass starts - that way even if I get 5 to 10 minutes before Mass starts, it helps me settle in & pray before, rather than run in all huffing & puffing just in time or miss anything because I’m late.

What distracts you during Mass?

(02) Paid more attention to the Punctuation & Pronunciation of the Reader than the Reading: I fancy myself a good orator. And so, many times when the lector (churcy term for the person who reads the readings during Mass) makes a mistake in pronunciation or the like, instead of letting it go & concentrating on what the Lord is saying to me, I have laughed in my head. Or wondered how “these people” can go to read.

This shameful pride of mine is just the door Satan needs to enter into me and steal away the precious gifts the Lord intends to give to me during the Reading of His most Holy Word during Mass.

To combat this area, I consciously ask the Lord to remove all pride from me & if my focus does shift off the reading to the reader, I ask the Lord for pardon & consciously try to focus on the reading again.

(03) Post Communion Fashion Parade: Am quiet ashamed to say I ever did this, but yet it is true. There was a time that after communion, I’d settle down & quite happily look at whatever everyone else receiving communion & walking down the aisle - or the fashion ramp in my head - was wearing. Worse still, I’d judge them: “too skimpy for church / what, no time to get out of tracks? / too fat to be wearing that!”

Yes, I know. I was horrible.

Mercifully the Lord pardons all sinners who’re truly repentant - which means those who are not only sorry but also make a concerted effort to not repeat the sin.

And to this extent, I now sit on the first pew & pretty much kneel & close my eyes until well after communion is over.

As an added benefit of doing this, I’m able to concentrate on praying after communion better and the whole experience of receiving the real Presence of our Lord is now a valued one.

Have noted only three mistakes, but there are so many other things we are all sometimes guilty of:

• Being distracted by the Choir / Cantor / Musicians (for no fault of theirs)
• Being judgmental about the Priest celebrating / giving Holy communion
• Being distracted by other people in Mass (again for no fault of theirs)
• Not actually praying the prayers, but only saying them automatically like a machine
• Rushing off before the last hymn is sung!
• Fussing about with children during Mass - good tip: sit near the exits so that in event of an emergency / crying baby, you can leave without a big to-do!
• Keeping Cell phones on during Mass!
• Talking to person near by during Mass
• Fussing about with hair / adjusting clothes too much

Remember Holy Mass is a Community form of prayer - if we fail to do our part, besides not receiving all the great things in store for us as Mass, we’re also letting down the whole community.

Brazilian Midfielder Kaká testifies

“When I was eight, I moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil (from Cuiaba, Brazil) where I began to play soccer (football). I have always loved to play soccer.

I played on the Junior Team for Sao Paulo in 2000. We were in the middle of the Paulista Junior Championships when I received a yellow card. I was suspended for the following game, so I took advantage of the free weekend to visit my grandparents, who lived in Caldas Novas at the time.

My brother, my parents, my grandparents and I went to a water park. As I was coming down one of the slides into the pool, I hit my head on the bottom of the pool and my neck snapped. I fractured the sixth vertebra in my neck. At the time, I had no idea what happened.

I returned to Sao Paulo to train on Monday, as well as on Tuesday, all the while with a broken neck. On Tuesday, I called the coach and the physical trainer and told them that I couldn’t bear the pain any longer. They sent me to see a doctor at the hospital where they took another x-ray. It was in this x-ray that the fracture in the sixth vertebra was shown.

Everyone, including the doctors, told me I was very lucky that nothing more serious happened. They told me that I could have become paralyzed and lost my ability to walk and to play soccer. I believe it was not luck. I believe God was protecting me during that time from anything more serious.

Many people think that I became a Christian after the accident, but that is not true. My parents are Christians and they raised me with biblical values. The accident happened in October of 2000 while I was playing in the “base” position on the Sao Paulo junior team. Throughout November and December, I had to wear a cervical collar and could not play.

I began to play again in January of 2001, and after about 10 or 15 days, I was called to play for the Sao Paulo professional team. Because of this, I believe God had a purpose in that accident. It is something that happened just before I had the great blessing of starring as a professional in Sao Paulo and initiating my career as a professional soccer player.

As I said before, my parents always taught me the Bible and its values, and also about Jesus Christ and faith. I did not have a specific conversion experience, but little by little, I stopped simply hearing people talk about the Jesus my parents taught me [about], and there came a time when I wanted to live my own experiences with God. One of these experiences with God was when I was baptized at the age of 12. This was a very important step in my walk with Jesus and soon after many things began to happen in my life where I could experience God in a real way.

I need Jesus every day of my life. Jesus tells me in the Bible that without Him I can’t do anything. I have the gift and capacity today to play soccer because God gave it to me. The day He wants me to do something else, I will do that something else and this is why I need Jesus in my life every day.

I am successful in my financial life and in my professional life, but all this has come from God and is a gift of grace from Him for my life. All that I have, I thank Him for.

The difference Jesus makes in my life is that I know I will always have victory, I will always have joy, and I will always have success. This is independent of the situations I face or will face. This brings me great peace.

I usually tell the people who ask, that the Bible is like the user’s manual that comes when you buy a product. It has everything we need in it. It makes me happy to read the Bible every day, to study it and to be in fellowship with God and learn more and more about Jesus.

I will win many matches and I will lose many matches, but I know that in all of them, God has a plan. This is why I try to understand the plan of God for me in each moment so that I can have peace during times of pressure.

Everyone wants to be a winner, but for me, the true meaning of winning is having Jesus in my life. It is a life of prayer, a life of intimacy and a lifelong friendship, knowing that God is our Father. I can say that I am a winner and I am victorious because Jesus lives in my life. No, I will never stop following Him”

~  Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, commonly known as Kaká.

Gaurav Shroff testifies: Gregorian music led me to Christ

Written by Nirmala Carvalho for Mumbai (AsiaNews). Here is the story of conversion of a young Gujarati Hindu, who went from fascination with sacred music to discover the love of Christ on the Cross. Now he wants to become a priest and missionary.

Towering at 6 ft 3 in (191 cm), Gaurav literally looks down on people. This young Gujarati convert was captivated by Christian music of the Renaissance era, and choral music awakened in him a quest for beauty.

Gaurav Shroff was born on 30 December 1972 at Holy Family Hospital, New Delhi (“I joke with my parents that ‘Holy Family’ should have been a clue to my future!”). His early childhood was spent in Bethesda, MD (a suburb of Washington DC), when his father was working for the World Bank. The family returned to India when he was around 6 years old, and he attended St Xavier’s Loyola Hall, a school in Ahmedabad where he joined the school choir. His only knowledge of Christians was that they did not speak Gujarati or Hindi fluently and that they buried the dead, something that intrigued him.

Describing his own religious upbringing, Gaurav said, “My father worked at the World Bank and later was the editor of the Economic Times. My mother was the first woman district collector of Gujarat. While there was an emphasis was on traditional Indian values, they espoused secular humanist ideals and values. However, it was from my grandmother that I learned the ancient stories of the Hindu religion—the epics of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita.”

“It was aesthetics,” Gaurav said. “The beauty of sacred music held me spellbound at my first ever experience of the Eucharist at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai on 15 August, Indian Independence Day and the Feast of the Assumption. The sublime music of the Mass undoubtedly assured me of God’s presence; the Gregorian chants elevated my spirits, creating in me a sense of awe for the Sacred. I was instinctively drawn by the aesthetic beauty of the Eucharist and this experience filled my heart with immense joy.”

This young man, an idealistic, Westernized 18-year-old upper caste Hindu, who was trained in Hindustani classical music, began studying Church history, in an attempt to understand “what could have inspired the genius of great musicians to compose some of the greatest classical works in honour of the Divine and place their art at the service of the liturgy.”

Gaurav spent hours poring over books at St Xavier’s Library, teaching himself Latin from the pre-Vatican II Missals to learn and understand the Latin Gregorian chants: the Credo, the Gloria, the other parts of the Mass.

So fascinated was he by the sacred music of the Eucharist, that he attended Midnight Mass the same year at Holy Name Cathedral, accompanied by his father. As he became increasingly interested in the solemn liturgies, his friends invited him to the Easter Triduum the following year, with the simple directive not to receive Holy Communion.

Therefore, in 1991, Gaurav went for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Holy Name Cathedral. “Nothing had prepared me for the ‘Washing of the Feet’. I watched with amazement as Archbishop Simon Pimenta disrobed and knelt down, washing the feet of 12 men. I had never witnessed such humility in a spiritual leader.” He began reflecting on the nature of these priests, this servant leadership, which was an alien concept.

At the Good Friday service, since his friends had only barred him from communion, he went for the Veneration of the Cross. “As I knelt down and kissed the Cross, I vividly remember the clear voice in my heart saying to me: ‘I died for you,’ and I began to weep unashamedly, and though I did not understand what it meant, I was certain, that the Crucified Christ loved me. Then it wasn’t about music anymore, I wanted to learn more about this Jesus. Either Jesus was completely crazy or he was God.”

He began reading everything about the Catholic faith, the Bible and regularly went for Sunday Mass. In 1993, Gaurav went to a Jesuit retreat praying alone at night before the Blessed Sacrament. “I strongly felt the presence of the Divine, the deep love of God for me, and in the darkness, I was illuminated: My life belonged to Jesus, to know him, to love him and to serve him. This was my mission and vocation. I felt called to be a priest.”

“I also had a very serious talk with my family about my decision to become Catholic and be baptised. ‘As long as you do not sever family ties and do not go aggressively proselytizing, you have our Blessings!’ was my father’s response.”

On August 15 1994, the Feast of the Assumption, Gaurav was baptised at St Peter’s Church, Bandra, surrounded by 20 friends, Hindus, Catholics, and Muslims.

Two weeks after his baptism, Gaurav arrived in the United States into an intellectual climate that bred suspicion of the Catholic Church. “God was always faithful, and under the protection of His Blessed Mother, I persevered in the Faith.”

“The next four years of my life were the time that God allowed me to see my reality; but even in crises, the calling to the priesthood hauntingly persisted. So, in order to attempt to discern God’s plan in my life, in 1998, I started a second Masters in Religious Studies, also at the University of South Carolina, and received an MA in Religious Studies, with a concentration in New Testament, in 2001.”

That same year, he started work full time at the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Center at the University of South Carolina as the Associate Campus Minister, where he was responsible for the faith formation of the small University parish. His zeal for evangelisation led him in 2006 to the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers (an American religious order), which took him to Washington, DC.

“In 2006, my father was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. I always had a close relationship with him, and this was devastating. This was just before I entered the novitiate, and I got to spend a few months with him before I left for Washington. God’s generosity knows no bounds and I was able to be in India for the last two weeks of his life.”

In 2007, he discerned that God was calling him to the diocesan priesthood and so he moved back to the South, and applied to the Archdiocese of Atlanta. After some pastoral work in the diocese, he was sent to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 2008.

Currently, he is finishing the first of four years of Theological Studies at the seminary, and “God willing, I will be ordained to the diaconate in 2012 and the priesthood in 2013, for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.”

“The intervention of God at the foot of the cross in 1991 changed the course of my life forever. Evangelisation and the vocation of the laity will be the central passion of my ministry as a diocesan priest. I see my future role as someone who leads, sanctifies, teaches the laity, not as passive recipients”, I shall be “someone who calls out their gifts, talents, charisms, so that the Christ’s lay faithful can be equipped to bring the Gospel to the world, and share in the Church’s mission.”

“I hope, through my calling, to proclaim the Love of Christ Crucified to the people and to bring our people to connect with Jesus Christ, to get to know Him in a deep, intimate relationship,” for “he is the source of all love and happiness.”

DaNae Hagelberg’s ‘The Book of Unhidden Secrets. Task One: Forgiveness’

Back Cover:
“‘Mindy, they are sending me to Iraq, and you will be going to stay with your grandparents in Oklahoma. I’ll be gone for a year. I have already talked to them, and you’ll be flying out tomorrow.’

Fourteen-year-old Mindy Hanson isn’t thrilled with the idea of moving to Oklahoma. But from the moment she leaves her father’s side at the airport, strange things begin to happen. Not only is she having extraordinary dreams, but her Bible, the last gift from her mother before she died, starts glowing whenever it’s opened. Soon Mindy and her two new friends, Billy and Tommy, are plunged into an ancient world full of danger and adventure, where they’ll need all their courage and knowledge to survive. In The Book of Unhidden Secrets, DaNae Hagelberg brings historical Jerusalem back to life through the eyes of three unlikely heroes as Mindy and her friends set off on a journey to find King David and complete their task before time runs out. Will they ever be able to return home? Take a look into The Book of Unhidden Secrets to unveil the truth and find a treasure of your own.”

Even before I start the review of this first book in a new series for tweens, let me say, I *loved* the concept of taking the protagonists & her friends back into the Bible into historical Jerusalem to meet King David! From the time I read the back cover I was totally floored and wondered what it would be like if I too could go back into time & visit the Bible greats like David!

I was also a tad worried that the book wouldn’t live upto my expectations and that it wouldn’t be as fun as I hoped - I needn’t have bothered; the book was a fun read.

Not only is it decently paced throughout the book, but the characters are all believable and easy to relate to in today’s world - especially the fourteen year old protagonist Mindy. She’s not a holy joe, in fact far from it. She’s given up her faith post her mother’s death & strange signs or not, she finds it hard to accept God again. The going back to Jerusalem is also well written & interesting from a historical point of view.

My only possible negative critique of the book, was that it was too small & got over way too fast. I would have ideally liked to read more adventure in Jerusalem before the task was completed. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to wait for book 2.

Answering Scandal with Personal Holiness by Fr. Roger J. Landry

Below is the text of an inspiring homily given by Fr. Roger J. Landry, a Priest of St Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Shared by a Filipino priest serving in a parish church in Osaka, Japan - The text “Answering Scandal with Personal Holiness” is worth reading especially for those who yearn for some answers… It holds good for any kind of personal ‘sins’ of the clergy. A bit long, but faith-building.

The headlines this past week did not focus on the Patriots’ march to the Super Bowl, or on who would QB, Drew or Tom, or even on the President’s State of the Union address and his comment that there are many Al-Qaeda operatives in the US like “ticking time-bombs”. None of these was the top story.

The headlines were captured by the very sad news that perhaps up to seventy priests in the Archdiocese of Boston have abused young people whom they were consecrated to serve. It’s a huge scandal, one that many people who have long disliked the Church because of one of her moral or doctrinal teachings are using as an issue to attack the Church as a whole, trying to imply that they were right all along.

Many people have come up to me to talk about it. Many others have wanted to, but I think out of respect and of not wanting to bring up what they thought might be bad news, have refrained, but it was obvious to me that it was on their mind. And so, today, I’d like to tackle the issue head-on. You have a right to it. We cannot pretend as if it didn’t exist. And I’d like to discuss what our response should be as faithful Catholics to this terrible scandal.

The first thing we need to do is to understand it from the point of view of our faith in the Lord. Before He chose his first disciples, Jesus went up the mountain all night to pray. He had at the time many followers. He talked to his Father in prayer about whom he would choose to be his twelve apostles, the twelve he would himself form intimately, the twelve whom he would send out to preach the Good News in His name. He gave them power to cast out demons. He gave them power to cure the sick. They watched him work countless miracles. They themselves in His name worked countless others.

Yet, despite all of that, one of them was a traitor. One, who had followed the Lord, who had had his feet washed by the Lord, who had seen him walk on water, raise people from the dead, and forgive sinners, betrayed the Lord. The Gospel tells us that he allowed Satan to enter into Him and then sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, handing him over by faking a gesture of love. “Judas,” Jesus said to him in the garden of Gethsemane, “Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” Jesus didn’t choose Judas to betray him. He chose him to be like all the others. But Judas was always free, and he used his freedom to allow Satan to enter into him, and by his betrayal, ended up getting Jesus crucified and executed.

So right from the first twelve that Jesus himself chose, one was a terrible traitor. SOMETIMES GOD’S CHOSEN ONES BETRAY HIM. That’s a fact that we have to confront. It’s a fact that the early Church confronted. If the scandal caused by Judas was all the members of the early Church focused on, the Church would have been finished before it even started to grow. Instead, the Church recognized that you don’t judge something by those who don’t live it, but by those who do.

Instead of focusing on the one who betrayed, they focused on the other eleven, on account of whose work, preaching, miracles, and love for Christ, we are here today. It’s on account of the other eleven - all of whom except St. John was martyred for Christ and for the Gospel they were willing to give their lives, to proclaim to us - that we ever heard the saving word of God, that we ever received the sacraments of eternal life.

We are confronted by the same reality today. We can focus on those who betrayed the Lord, those who abused rather than loved those whom they were called to serve, or we can focus, like the early Church did, on the others, on those who have remained faithful, those priests who are still offering their lives to serve Christ and to serve you out of love. The media almost never focuses on the good “eleven,” the ones whom Jesus has chosen who remain faithful, who live lives of quiet holiness. But we, the Church, must keep the terrible scandal that we’ve witnessed in its true and full perspective.

Scandal is unfortunately nothing new for the Church. There have been many times in the history of the Church when the Church was much worse off than it is now. The history of the Church is like a cosine curve, with ups and downs throughout the centuries. At each of the times when the Church hit its low point, God raised up tremendous saints to bring the Church back to its real mission. It’s almost as if in those times of darkness, the Light of Christ shone ever more brightly. I’d like to focus a little on a couple of saints whom God raised up in these most difficult times, because their wisdom can really guide us during this difficult time.

St. Francis de Sales was one saint God raised up after the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was not principally about theology, about the faith - although theological differences came later - but about morals. There was an Augustinian priest, Martin Luther, who went down to Rome just after the papacy of the most notorious pope in history, Pope Alexander VI.

(image (c) Mariopiperni.com)

This pope never taught anything against the faith - the Holy Spirit prevented that - but he was simply a wicked man. He had nine children from six different concubines. He put out contracts against those he considered his enemies. Martin Luther visited Rome just after Alexander VI’s papacy and wondered how God could allow such a wicked man to be the visible head of his Church. He went back to Germany and saw all types of moral problems. Priests were living in open relationships with women. Some were trying to profit from selling spiritual goods. There was a terrible immorality among lay Catholics. He was scandalized, as anyone who loved God might have been, by such rampant abuse. So he founded his own Church.

Eventually God raised up many saints to combat this wrong solution and to bring people back to the Church Christ founded. St. Francis de Sales was one of them. At the risk of his life, he went through parts of what is now Switzerland, where the Calvinists were popular, preaching the Gospel with truth and love. Often he was beaten up on his way and left for dead. Once he was asked to address the situation of the scandal caused by so many of his brother priests. What he said is as important for us today as it was for his listeners then. He didn’t pull any punches.

He said, “Those who commit these types of scandals are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder,” destroying other people’s faith in God by their terrible example. But then he warned his listeners, “But I’m here among you to prevent something far worse for you. While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal - who allow scandals to destroy their faith - are guilty of spiritual suicide.” They’re guilty, he said, of cutting off their life with Christ, abandoning the source of life in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. He went among the people in what is now Switzerland trying to prevent their committing spiritual suicide on account of the scandals. I’m here to preach the same thing to you.

What should our reaction be then? Another great saint who lived in a tremendously difficult time can help us further. The great St. Francis of Assisi lived in the 1200s, which was a time of terrible immorality in central Italy. Priests were setting horrible example. Lay immorality was even worse. St. Francis himself while a young man even gave some scandal to others by his carefree ways. But eventually he was converted back to the Lord, founded the Franciscans, helped God rebuild his Church and became one of the great saints of all time.

Once, one of the brothers in the Order of Friars Minor asked him a question. The brother was very sensitive to scandals. “Br. Francis,” he said, “What would you do if you knew that the priest celebrating Mass had three concubines on the side?” Francis, without missing a beat, said slowly, “When it came time for Holy Communion, I would go to receive the Sacred Body of my Lord from the priest’s anointed hands.”

What was Francis getting at? He was getting at a tremendous truth of the faith and a tremendous gift of the Lord. No matter how sinful a priest is, provided that he has the intention to do what the Church does - at Mass, for example, to change bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, or in confession, no matter how sinful he is personally, to forgive the penitent’s sins - Christ himself acts through that minister in the sacraments.

Whether Pope John Paul II celebrates the Mass or whether a priest on death-row for a felony celebrates Mass, it is Christ who himself acts and gives us His own body and blood. So what Francis was saying in response to the question of his religious brother that he would receive the Sacred Body of His Lord from the priest’s anointed hands, is that he was not going to let the wickedness or immorality of the priest lead him to commit spiritual suicide. Christ can still work and does still work even through the most sinful priest. And thank God!

If we were always dependent on the priest’s personal holiness, we’d be in trouble. Priests are chosen by God from among men, and they’re tempted just like any human being and fall through sin just like any human being. But God knew that from the beginning. Eleven of the first twelve apostles scattered when Christ was arrested, but they came back; one of the twelve sinned in betraying the Lord and sadly never came back. God has essentially made the sacraments “priest-proof”, in terms of their personal holiness. No matter how holy they are, or how wicked, provided they have the intention to do what the Church does, then Christ himself acts, just as he acted through Judas when Judas expelled demons and cured the sick.

And so, again, I ask, “What should the response of the Church be to these deeds?” There has been a lot of talk about that in the media. Does the Church have to do a better job in making sure no one with any predisposition toward pedophilia gets ordained? Absolutely. But that would not be enough. Does the Church have to do a better job in handling cases when they are reported? The Church has changed its way of handling these cases, and today they’re much better than they were in the 1980s, but they can always be perfected.

But even that is not enough. Do we have to do more to support the victims of such abuse? Yes we do, both out of justice and out of love! But not even that is adequate. Cardinal Law has gotten most of the deans of the medical schools in Boston to work on establishing a center for the prevention of child abuse, which is something that we should all support. But not even that is a sufficient response.

The only adequate response to this terrible scandal, the only fully Catholic response to this scandal - as St. Francis of Assisi recognized in the 1200s, as St. Francis de Sales recognized in the 1600s, and as countless other saints have recognized in every century - is HOLINESS! Every crisis that the Church faces, every crisis that the world faces, is a crisis of saints. Holiness is crucial, because it is the real face of the Church.

There are always people - a priest meets them regularly, you probably know several of them - who use excuses for why they don’t practice the faith, why they slowly commit spiritual suicide. It can be because a nun was mean to them when they were nine. Or, because they don’t understand the teaching of the Church on a particular issue. There will doubtless be many people these days - and you will probably meet them - who will say, “Why should I practice the faith, why should I go to Church, since the Church can’t be true if God’s so-called chosen ones can do the types of things we’ve been reading about?” This scandal is a huge hanger on which some will try to hang their justification for not practicing the faith. That’s why holiness is so important.

They need to find in all of us a reason for faith, a reason for hope, a reason for responding with love to the love of the Lord. The beatitudes which we have in today’s Gospel are a recipe for holiness. We all need to live them more. Do priests have to become holier? They sure do. Do religious brothers and sisters have to become holier and give ever greater witness of God and heaven? Absolutely. But all people in the Church do, including lay people! We all have the vocation to be holy and this crisis is a wake-up call.

It’s a tough time to be a priest today. It’s a tough time to be a Catholic today. But it’s also a great time to be a priest and a great time to be a Catholic. Jesus says in the beatitudes we heard today, “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you falsely because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great.” I’ve been experiencing that beatitude first hand, as some priests I know have as well.

Earlier this week, when I finished up my exercise at a local gym, I was coming out of the locker-room dressed in my black clerical garb. A mother, upon seeing me, immediately and hurriedly moved her children out of the way and shielded them from me as I was passing. She looked at me as I passed and when I had gone far enough along finally relaxed and let her children go - as if I would have attacked her children in the middle of the afternoon at a health club!

But while we all might have to suffer such insults and slander falsely on account of Christ, we should indeed rejoice. It’s a great time to be a Christian, because this is a time in which God really needs us to show off his true face. In bygone days in America, the Church was respected. Priests were respected. The Church had a reputation for holiness and goodness. It’s not so any more.

One of the greatest Catholic preachers in American history, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, used to say, that he preferred to live in times when the Church has suffered rather than thrived, when the Church had to struggle, when the Church had to go against the culture. It was a time for real men and real women to stand up and be counted. “Even dead bodies can float downstream,” he used to say, pointing that many people can coast when the Church is respected, “but it takes a real man, a real woman, to swim against the current.”

How true that is! It takes a real man and a real woman to stand up now and swim against the current that is flowing against the Church. It takes a real man and a real woman to recognize that when swimming against the flood of criticism, you’re safest when you stay attached to the Rock on whom Christ built his Church. This is one of those times. It’s a great time to be a Christian.

Some people are predicting that the Church in this area is in for a rough time, and maybe she is, but the Church will survive, because the Lord will make sure it survives. One of the greatest comeback lines in history happened just about 200 years ago. The French emperor Napoleon was swallowing up countries in Europe with his armies bent on total world domination. He then said to Cardinal Consalvi, “I will destroy your Church.” (”Je detruirai votre eglise!”) The Cardinal said, “No you won’t.” Napoleon, all 5′2″ of him said, (”Je detruirai votre eglise!”) The Cardinal said with confidence, “No you won’t. Because, not even we have succeeded in doing that!”

If bad popes, immoral priests and thousands of sinners in the Church haven’t succeeded in doing so from the inside - he was saying implicitly to the general - how do you think you’re going to do it? The Cardinal was pointing to a crucial truth. Christ will never allow his Church to fail. He promised that the gates of hell wouldn’t prevail against his Church, that the braque of Peter, the Church sailing through time to its eternal port in heaven, will never capsize, not because those in the boat won’t do everything sinfully possible to turn it over, but because Christ, who is in the boat, will never allow it to happen. Christ is still in the boat and he’ll never leave it.

The magnitude of this scandal might be such that you may find it difficult to trust priests in the same way you have in the past. That may be so, and that might not be completely a bad thing. But never lose trust in Him! It’s His Church. Even if some of those he chose have betrayed him, he will call others who will be faithful, who will serve you with the love with which you deserve to be served, just like after Judas’ death, the eleven apostles convened and allowed the Lord to choose someone to take Judas’ place, and they chose the man who ended up becoming St. Matthias, who proclaimed the Gospel faithfully until he was martyred for it.

This is a time in which all of us need to focus ever more on holiness. We’re called to be saints and how much our society here needs to see this beautiful, radiant face of the Church. You’re part of the solution, a crucial part of the solution. And as you come forward today to receive from this priest’s anointed hands the sacred Body of your Lord, ask Him to fill you with a real desire for sanctity, a real desire to show off His true face.

One of the reasons why I’m here in front of you as a priest today is because while I younger, I was under-impressed with some of the priests I knew. I would watch them celebrate Mass and almost without any reverence whatsoever drop the Body of the Lord onto the paten, as if they were handling something with little value rather than the Creator and Savior of all, rather than MY Creator and Savior. I remember saying to the Lord, reiterating my desire to be a priest, “Lord, please let me become a priest, so I can treat you like you deserve!” It gave me a great fire to serve the Lord.

Maybe this scandal can allow you to do the same thing. This scandal can be something that can lead you down to the path of spiritual suicide, or it can be something that can inspire you to say, finally, “I want to become a saint, so that I and the Church can give your name the glory it deserves, so that others might find in you the love and the salvation that I have found.” Jesus is with us, as he promised, until the end of time. He’s still in the boat.

Just as out of Judas’ betrayal, he achieved the greatest victory in world history, our salvation through his passion, death and resurrection, so out of this he may bring, and wants to bring, a new rebirth of holiness, a new Acts of the Apostles for the 21st century, with each of us - and that includes YOU - playing a starring role. Now is the time for real men and women of the Church to stand up. Now is the time for saints. How do you respond?

Rick Warren’s Take on Life

Interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren (”Purpose Driven Life ” author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California):

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body– but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.

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Glorify God.. in our Movie choices?

The foundational verse this online magazine Glorify God, was built on is 1 Cor 10:31 which states:

“whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”

Even for those of us who theoretically agree that we should follow the Bible to a T - how many of us go the extra mile to do this practically in our everyday life?

Today a few friends and I got watching a rented dvd of the movie ‘Zohan‘. The movie hardly started and I was put off by the crude and vulgar “humor”. My friends chose to continue watching despite my cringing. About twenty minutes into the movie, I had a choice to make - either I was going to continue watching this horrifically immoral & perverse movie (I don’t even want to mention the obscenities, worse than ‘The Hangover’ too, which I also hated) or I was to leave alone.

It was not even a few seconds after I left that I knew I had made the right choice.

Glorify God in our choice of movies?

Yes, absolutely.

Back home, the Lord led me to read Hebrews 11:16:

^“See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son”

And I felt the Lord explaining to me - by the blood and the sacrifice of Jesus, we are made children of God and hence and heirs to the Kingdom of God. That means we have “inheritance rights”.

Yet, we are warned - not to be “godless” like Esau.

For those of you who may not remember the story of Esau & Jacob, we see it in Genesis 25:

One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved! Give me some of that red soup!” (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means “red.”) “All right,” Jacob replied, “but trade me your rights as the firstborn son.” “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?”

It is easy to have sympathy for Esau. After all he was hungry and tired after all & he was tempted with the soup and he made a wrong decision, which ultimately cost him his inheritance.

It initially seemed to me, rather harsh of Paul to call him godless!

But then I realised that this was a warning to us - it is so easy to sometimes choose instant gratification. It is so easy sometimes for us to make wrong choices, for various reasons.

Esau was only concerned with temporal (not eternal, fleeting) things. Jacob on the other hand was driven by the eternal, he wanted the long term privileged the birthright would give him. Even though he got it by underhand means, the desire of his heart (for the eternal) was what God saw & rewarded him for.

We today gain our eternal inheritance rights simply by accepting Jesus as our Lord & Saviour. Unlike Jacob, we don’t have to scheme to get anything. However, let’s not take our inheritance for granted or so lightly because of that!

Let’s not, Esau, be driven by the temporal aspects of life. Let’s not lose our anointing, that Jesus suffered so much for us to have.

It’s so easy to forget about God completely in everyday choices - be they the movies we choose to watch or the language we choose to speak or food we choose to eat.

Remember, it may be instantly gratifying - or the easier choice to make - but let’s not forget God over a bowl of soup.

The next time you’re faced with a tough choice, say to yourself, “this soup’s not worth it”.

T. J. Smith’s ‘The Harrowing Escape’ (The Quest of Dan Clay, Book 2)

‘The Harrowing Escape’, is Book Two in a Trilogy by T. J. Smith.
(Book One, ‘A World Away’ is reviewed here.)

Back Cover:

Within the hexed walls of the fortress, Dan and his companions are plagued with unsettling questions… questions whose answers will demand a deeper infiltration into the secret recesses of the centuries-old castle, answers which will involve confrontations with the citadel’s animate and inanimate residents, and answers which will entail encounters with the savage beasts of the forest.

Is Dan’s brother, William, alive and a prisoner of the Reclaimers? Will the travelers survive the spellbinding powers of the half-man and half-serpent creatures? Will the rescuers breach the spatial boundaries of the parallel world and return home?

In this second installment, we see the gang of 4: Dan, Sam, Jimmy & Cindy reach the demonic castle and instantly there is a whole host of new characters we’re introduced to. Some helpful, most lethal - but all other worldly in some way or the other.

Though T. J. Smith managed to keep my attention the whole book, I didn’t love this one as much as the first one and found myself wishing there was more action in the castle and less in the forest on the way back. The book has a very satisfactory end, when suddenly a new twist makes way for the third book in the trilogy, which irked me a little.

I however would definetely recommend buying the book (all three at one shot if possible) especially for young adults, as there is plenty of creative imagery, action & understanding of the Catholic faith mixed in the book.

Another great feature I loved, is the e|LIVE code that you get with the book, that allows yous to download your free audio book digital download! Good value for your money spent. Now waiting for the final book in the series.

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