Fight HB 2354: The Illinois FOCA Bill

House Bill 2354, Illinois State Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), passed the Illinois House Human Services Committee on March 11.  The bill will now head to the Illinois House floor for the consideration of the entire body.

Illinois residents, please call your Illinois State Representative with this message:

“Vote NO on HB 2354.  The bill is extreme. It declares abortion to be a fundamental right and it invalidates a health care professional’s right of conscience.”

The bill also seeks to :

– Make abortion a fundamental right, preventing any common-sense regulation such as parental notification
– Expand public funding of abortion through Medicaid at a time when the State cannot even meet its current fiscal obligations
– Invalidates the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act protecting health care professionals and employers
– Mandate comprehensive sex education for all children in public schools
– Establish a liability shield for abortion providers who harm pregnant women

Visit the Illinois General Assembly’s web site at www.ilga.gov to find your Legislator.  If you encounter any difficulties, please call the Catholic Conference of Illinois at 312-368-1066.

Cardinal Francis E. George’s letter on HB 2354:
Cardinal’s letter HB2354.pdf

Saint Patrick


St Patrick.JPGGod our Father, You sent Saint Patrick to preach Your glory to the people of Ireland. By the help of his prayers, may all Christians proclaim Your love to all men.

 

Saint Patrick’s Breast-Plate

(or “Lorica”)

 

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

 

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day.

 

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

 

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God’s power to guide me,
God’s Might to uphold me,
God’s Wisdom to teach me,
God’s Eye to watch over me,
God’s Ear to hear me,
God’s Word to give me speech,
God’s Hand to guide me,
God’s Way to lie before me,
God’s Shield to shelter me,
God’s Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seduction of vices,
Against the lust of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

 

I invoke to-day all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

 

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ on the deck,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

 


shamrocks.jpgI bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity.
I believe the Trinity in the Unity,
The Creator of the Universe.

 

(This prayer is believed to have been composed by Saint Patrick in preparation for this victory over paganism. The saint died on this day in 493)

Mercy can be challenging, to some

An article by Father Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, has been published by the Italian daily, Avvenire. The article is titled “A Challenging Mercy” and is related to the letter Pope Benedict addressed to all Bishops after the polemics about the lifting of the excommunication of bishops in the Society of St. Pius X. I recommend the article.

Pope announces Year of St John Mary Vianney 2009-2010


St John Mary Vianney.jpgOn the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of the Saint Curé of Ars, John Mary Vianney, His Holiness announced this morning that from June 19, 2009 to June 19, 2010, there will be a special Year of the Priesthood under the theme of “Fidelity of Christ, fidelity of priests.”

 

During this Jubilee Year Benedict XVI proclaimed Saint John Mary Vianney “Patron of all priests of the world.” He will publish a Directory for Confessors and Spiritual Directors together with a collection of writings of the Supreme Pontiff concerning the essential themes of the life and mission of the priesthood today.

 

The Congregation for the Clergy together with the diocesan ordinaries and superiors of religious institutes will collaborate in promoting and coordinating the various spiritual and pastoral initiatives that concern the importance of the life and mission of the spriest in the Church and in contemporary society, the necessity of competent permanent formation of priests and seminarians.

The Pope will opens the special Year on 19 June with Vespers in St. Peter’s Basilica where the relics of the saintly ‘Cure of Ars’ will be brought by Bishop Guy Bagnard of Belley-Ars, France. The pope will conclude the year on 19 June 2010, presiding at a “World Meeting of Priests” in St. Peter’s Square.

 

A video clip of the announcement from H2O News.

Zeal for your house will consume me: 3rd Sunday of Lent 2009

The gospel proclaimed at Mass today (if you are not doing the 3rd scrutiny) comes from Saint John’s gospel which tells us of the Lord cleaning His Father’s house. Many things can be said about the Lord’s righteous anger, but let’s stick to a few salient points. Consider the strong emotion of the Lord in His attempt to evoke and provoke his hearers to make a substantial change in life. The greater good that the Lord is trying to get us to see is what he sees: the immense zeal (fervor) for God the Father’s house is so important that it moved Him (and it should us) to action; this zeal ought to provoke us to cleanse the temple of our hearts, of our minds, of our habits, of our imagination. What Jesus implores us to do is nothing short of making a total heart and mind. Some things to consider:

 


Jesus Cleansing temple.jpg-Do we meet the Lord and others in humility?

-Are we faithful to the Lord as are able?

-Do we take time to know what the Lord is saying through the teaching of the Church, his sacrament on earth?

-When someone has a problem in understanding the faith, as we’ve seen recently in Connecticut S.B. 1098 and now with S.B. 899, do we take the time to understand the matter, look for the correct teaching and teach what the Church offers us for the good of our souls and for happiness?

-Are we deaf to the physical and spiritual, culture and social needs of our brothers and sisters?

-In watching the greed of Bernie Madoff unfold, can we might have to overturn the tables of our own greed?
-What are the sacrileges that we cling to so mightily, blasphemies with names like, hate, indifference, unkindness, gossip, unreasonableness, and inertia?

-Do we know what’s happening in our world well-enough to make changes where we stand? Would we be able to stop war, crime, violence, and abuse?
 
The house of God Jesus cleans is not merely the Temple of long ago; it is our lives, and the areas of our lives that we inhabit, including the Church, politics and society. Is it possible to believe for a moment in the power of Jesus to cleanse the temples of our person? Can we even think of changing our attitudes so totally that we’d never look back to sin? If we don’t have the strength of mind and heart and body and spirit, can we ask for the graces we need carry out the conversion needed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

 

If we really believe the Lord’s promises are true, can we rededicate ourselves to God today and accept the fact that the blood of Lamb -Jesus Christ–really saves us and urges us onward?

 

The Lord is not merely asking us to rearrange the furniture in our lives which may feel a bit comfortable TEMPORARILY, He’s asking us to change the color of our room, the bedding, the artwork, and the flooring we stand on PERMANENTLY. But the permanence is only possible if we ask for the grace to follow the Lord. Zeal for God’s house will consume me.

Divine Intimacy

We know by experience that we have not sufficient strength in ourselves to bring to a successful completion our chief Lenten duty, which is to die fully to sin in order to live fully in the risen Christ. But Christ himself, before leaving his own, prayed to his Father to preserve them from evil and from the evil one (John 17:15) – from the seductions of the world and the attacks of Satan.

 

He had taught them to ask: lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:13). Obviously he did not intend that his disciples be spared every kind of temptation and danger, for this would be impossible in this life; besides, God himself permits it to test our virtue, but he wanted to assure them sufficient strength to resist. The evil from which he desired to free them was sin, the only real disaster, because it separates us from God.

 

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Divine Intimacy

CT.gov: Religion and Politics

Tom Hoopes at the National Catholic Register opened my eyes this morning with a brief article on the State of Connecticut’s intrusion into matters of faith, doctrine and Church.

Last week had SB 1098; now we have to contend with SB 899. This new bill being proposed is wide reaching and very intrusive and just plain wrong, not just in matters of faith but culture, government and parenting.

The problem is education: the lack of it retards greater freedom and happiness for which we are made for by God: beatitude.

What is Ignatian Spirituality?

Ignatian spirituality is a method of prayer bequeathed to the Church by the 16th century Basque saint, Ignatius of Loyola. It is a spirituality grounded in the fundamental idea that God labors for us, that He is active in the daily life of man and woman. This spirituality is rooted in the Gospel and in the heart of the Catholic Church. This is a radical theological concept because, for instance, Muslims think it’s heretical to think that God became man (that the Incarnation is a fact) and that  we could (a) know the will of God; (b) that we could have a personal relationship with Him (in Jesus & the Holy Spirit) and (c) that God is always present to us. So, what does Ignatius give us? He wants “above all…you to increase the pure love of Jesus Christ in the desire of His glory and the salvation of the souls which He has redeemed.” This is a spirituality that trains us to “find God in all things.”

Ignatius wrote the Spiritual Exercises as a lay man with the singular intention of drawing others to Christ. The Exercises are guideposts, that is, notes for a spiritual director to use in orienting a retreatant on his or her retreat and are not meant to be read as one would read a novel. As other spiritualities are, the Ignatian way is unique for its constant attention to one’s intimate  relationship with Jesus and discerning the will of God in each person’s life. It is not merely a technique for making good decisions; for that you can seek the counsel of your favorite philosopher; it is a personal way of living graces given to us God. You may say that Ignatian spirituality is way of acknowledging and living the happiness that God’s wills for each of us. I find Ignatius’ method to be a practical spirituality that’s particularly suited to the needs and desires of Christians today.

Ignatian spirituality sees God as actively involved in the world and intimately involved with us in every moment and place. We therefore say that God is in the center of reality, in the mess of history redeeming humanity. We can say with Saint Ignatius that “God’s love is poured forth lavishly like a fountain spilling forth its waters into an unending stream.”Withdrawing from the world into a quiet place in order to find God is understandable but withdrawing from the world is not particularly “Ignatian” for the long haul. That is why Ignatius spoke of those who follow the Exercises as living a life contemplation in action. It is perfectly acceptable to spend an 8-day retreat in the quiet of a monastery or a secluded retreat house. Nevertheless, the virtue of this type spirituality is that is God encountered everywhere –in our work and our relationships, in our family and friends, in our sorrows and joys, in the sublime beauty of nature and in the mundane details of our daily lives. One caution: our work, relationships, family, friends and any other possible detail doesn’t replace our relationship with God,nor does it replace the sacraments, Mass, personal prayer and sacrifice. That is, you can’t hold that “my work is my prayer” and think you are actually following an authentic spirituality. But it is true that God is present to us and we are present to God through all these things (the daily grind of our lives) because of the Incarnation.

From history we know that Loyola is the founder, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of priests and brothers called to preach Jesus Christ in communion with the Pope under the standard of the Cross. Since the 1960s a Jesuit defined himself as a sinner redeemed (loved) by Christ. The motto of the Jesuits is Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (To the greater glory of God) which is based on the Benedictine motto of Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus (That in all things God may be glorified, 1 Peter 4:11): hence, the work of Ignatian spirituality is a life spent glorifying God using everything God has given us in order to live in communion with Him.

Benedict’s interpretative lens of Vatican II, according to Edward Oakes

Jesuit Father Edward T. Oakes, a Mundelein Seminary Theology professor explains Pope Benedict’s VERY clear reasons for putting to bed the ex communications of the SSPX bishops while delving into the acceptance of (or not) “Vatican II theology.” What Vatican II said is a bone of contention of many, for a very long time….

You’ve got to read the article, Benedict’s Vatican II Hermeneutic in First Things!