Worshiping God for His Own Sake

Thomas Aquinas College Alumni Fuel
"Vocations Boom" at Clear Creek Monastery

"Truth is not the only transcendental," Fr. Morey explains. "Like in the College's motto (verum, bonum, pulchrum), there's also the good and the beautiful in addition to the truth.… Yes, it's the experience in the classroom setting and learning, but it's also the smell of the orange blossoms on campus as it floats up the canyon in the spring, or playing beach volleyball in Ventura, or smoking cigars at Dr. Nieto's, or eating burgers and shakes at In-N-Out, orange milkshakes at The Summit. These aren't the noblest of all reasons, but the multifaceted reflections that you see all around you, and they are good, beautiful, and true."

Worshiping God for His Own Sake
http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/news/newsletter/2010/Winter/09%20Worshiping%20God%20for%20His%20Own%20Sake.html

Prayer for Healing the Family Tree

I've been thinking a lot about my extended family lately, especially those who are far from God. God has been tugging at my heart to pray for them more fervently. This morning I came across the following prayer and I think Lent would be a perfect time to start praying it. Although I don't have all the hurts mentioned in this prayer, I pray for those in my family who are hurting and struggling, that they will find peace and healing in God's love and mercy.

Prayer for Healing the Family Tree

By Rev. John H. Hampsch, CMF

Heavenly Father, I come before you as your child, in great need of your help; I have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, and interpersonal needs. Many of my problems have been caused by my own failures, neglect and sinfulness, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord. But I also ask you to forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and spirit. Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.

With your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders. In the name of your divine Son, Jesus, and in the power of his Holy Spirit, I ask you, Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one. Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every contaminating form of bondage. By your loving concern for us, heavenly Father, and by the shed blood of your precious Son, Jesus, I beg you to extend your blessing to me and to all my living and deceased relatives. Heal every negative effect transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in future generations of my family tree.

I symbolically place the cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family tree, and between each generation; I ask you to let the cleansing blood of Jesus purify the bloodlines in my family lineage. Set your protective angels to encamp around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability. Give special power to our family members' guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and encourage each of us in all our needs. Let your healing power be released at this very moment, and let it continue as long as your sovereignty permits.

In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love. And let there be an ever-deeper bonding with you, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to your Son, Jesus. Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its tender, warm, loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest that love in all our relationships. All of our unknown needs we include with this petition that we pray in Jesus' precious Name. Amen.

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St. Joseph, Patron of family life, pray for us.

Revolution of Love.com Blog
I am a Catholic wife and mama, loving God and striving to find Him in the midst of dishes, diapers, and dirty laundry.
http://revolutionoflove.stblogs.org/archives/2009/02/prayer-for-heal.html

Pope's Interreligious Outreach

Zenit reports that Pope Benedict XVI has planned four meetings with representatives of other religious groups during his trip to the U.S., including an ecumenical prayer service and a visit to a synagogue.

Father James
Massa, executive director of the U.S episcopal conference's Secretariat
for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said this is because "the
Pope is convinced that there will be no peace in the world until there
is peace among the religions. That is why he comes to the table of
dialogue here in the U.S. and in Rome, with hope and abiding
conviction."

Pressure on Church Institutions

Cardinal Pell of Australia discussed the challenges to Church institutions coming from "anti-discrimination" laws favoring homosexual lifestyles.

At the heart of this attack on the concept of exemptions for faith-based agencies lies a false analogy drawn between alleged discrimination against homosexuals and racial discrimination, and this is already beginning to appear in Australia.

This analogy allows opponents of exemptions to dismiss the objection that the law makes exceptions all the time - for example, for halal abattoirs, or for Sikhs to wear turbans, or for pacifists to avoid military service - by pointing to the legitimate absence of exceptions in laws against racial discrimination. Opposition to same-sex marriage is therefore likened to support for laws against inter-racial marriage (which continued in some US states until the 1960s), and opposition to homosexual adoptions is likened to refusing to adopt children to black parents.

The analogy is false because allowing blacks and whites to marry did not require changing the whole concept of marriage; and allowing black parents to adopt white children, or vice versa, did not require changing the whole concept of family, or for that matter, the whole concept of childhood. Same-sex marriage and adoption changes the meaning of marriage, family, parenting and childhood for everyone, not just for homosexual couples. And whatever issues of basic justice remain to be addressed, I am not sure that it is at all true to say that homosexuals today suffer the same sort of legal and civil disadvantages which blacks in the United States and elsewhere suffered forty years ago, and to some extent still suffer.

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The Freedom of Christ

From the Pope's Angelus message of July 1, 2007:

The Bible readings of this Sunday's Mass invite us to meditate on a charming theme which can be summarized thus: the freedom and the following of Christ. Luke the Evangelist tells of how Jesus, "when the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem" (Lk 9:51). In the expression "resolutely" we can glimpse the freedom of Christ. He knows, in fact, that in Jerusalem, death by the cross awaits him, but in obedience to the will of the Father he offers himself for love. It is in this, his obedience to the Father, that Jesus fulfills his own conscious choice motivated by love. Who is more free than the One who is Omnipotent? But it was a freedom he didn't see as arbitrary or as one of dominion. It was one he viewed as service. In the process, he "restored" what freedom means, otherwise it would remain "empty" opportunities of doing or not doing something. And so in the life of man, freedom brings with it a sense of love. Who is actually more free? The one who withholds all possibilities for fear of losing, or the one who gives himself "resolutely" in service and so finds himself full of life thanks to the love he has given and received?

Religious Freedom Day - January 16th

President George W. Bush has issued the following proclamation of “Religious Freedom Day” for January 16, 2007.

On Religious Freedom Day, we commemorate the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson, and we celebrate the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom.

Across the centuries, people have come to America seeking to worship the Almighty freely. Today, our citizens profess many different faiths, and we welcome every religion. Yet people in many countries live without the freedom to worship as they choose and some face persecution for their beliefs. My administration is working with our friends and allies around the globe to advance common values and spread the blessings of liberty to every corner of the world. Freedom is a gift from the Almighty, written in the heart and soul of every man, woman, and child, and we must continue to promote the importance of religious freedom at home and abroad.

Now, therefore, I, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2007, as Religious Freedom Day. I call on all Americans to reflect on the great blessing of religious liberty, endeavor to preserve this freedom for future generations, and commemorate this day with appropriate events and activities in their schools, places of worship, neighborhoods, and homes.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eleventh day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

Via EWTN News.