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The grave of Venerable Cardinal John Henry Newman was excavated last week on instructions from the Vatican but no physical remains were found in the coffin.

 

Full story here.

If something uncharitable is said in your presence, either speak in favor of the absent, or withdraw, or if possible stop the conversation.

– St. John Vianney

Posted By Anna Pier Day On May 23, 2008 @ 12:00 am for Catholic Exchange

I argued with the priest — the strong-willed one — who sat opposite me in the confessional. For every argument I presented, though, his response was the same: a calm, understanding, but firm, “There are no exceptions to the Church’s teaching against contraception.”

Truth be told, if the Church had been less wise and had made exceptions, our family situation might have qualified as one. A few months earlier, after the birth of our youngest son, I had suffered from an acute depression with accompanying suicidal thoughts and a brief psychotic episode that had landed me in two different mental hospitals. I had been torn away from my life as the stay-home mother of a toddler and a still-nursing infant for the two weeks of hospitalization my treatment required, and the whole experience had been devastating — not only for me, but also for my family and everyone who cared about us. As a result, my husband and I were very afraid of the possible ramifications of another bout of post-partum hormone fluctuations. And, having recently returned to the Church after a 20-year absence, I was finding her teaching against contraception very difficult to accept.

But there was something about the way this priest calmly stood his ground (even when I told him for the twenty-third time why my family should be exempt from this particular teaching) that made me believe he was giving me the Truth. So, after a few more weeks, my husband and I discussed natural family planning, and we (somewhat fearfully) agreed to try it.

Continue reading here.

 

About a year ago I received an email from a Catholic author with a request to participate in a novena.  Essentially, the request was for blessings upon the works of Catholic authors in the form of sales, recognitions, and other assorted sundry ways in which an author might actually make a living, or at least get a few dollars here and there. 

Being a Catholic publisher I was delighted to take part in this novena.  Along with my own personal participation in the prayers, I wrote a small article and posted it on a few websites that published my articles.  Much to my surprise the item took on a life of its own and appeared on a number of Catholic author’s blogs and additional websites.  It was a call to Catholics everywhere to search out and support the works of Catholic authors and I began receiving requests for suggestions on ways in which to find great Catholic books for families, parishes, and classrooms.

Since that novena request, we have been blessed by a Papal visit in which our beloved Pontiff has asked us to get better at catechizing ourselves and our families.  He called for a return to the roots of Catholicism for educators, families, and parishes.  As I listened, I couldn’t help but think about Catholic authors like Harriet Sabatini whose book, “Joseph’s Hands,” is written for Catholic youngsters and catechism programs as it promotes vocations in a beautiful and uplifting way.  Her book has been endorsed by Archbishop Foley of Alabama and Catholic author Bert Ghezzi.  It is a book that belongs in every Catholic classroom around the country and is just what Pope Benedict was referring to when he asked us to develop vocations in our children.

If you are interested in finding books that are written by Catholic authors for Catholic audiences and are perfect replacements for popular secular books and books clubs (this is especially true for middle school kids), I’ve put together a list of Catholic titles and Catholic booksellers.  I asked many Catholic families and Catholic webmasters who have a “pulse” on their audience, to give me some “must read” Catholic selections. The only criteria?  Let’s shed light on some of our lesser known, but well worth knowing, Catholic authors.  Today I wanted to share the list of highly recommended books with you in hopes that as you put together your summer reading list, in consideration of Benedict’s call to get back to Catholic basics, or if you want to offer recommendations to your parish’s religious education program or parochial school teachers, please consider these Catholic works.  Go ahead and print this list out, save it, share it…I am sure you will love these recommendations!

Highly recommended fiction for adults:  Letters to Luke by Joe Holoubek has been endorsed by C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and Archbishop Philip Hannan of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.  It has won numerous awards including First Place in the Writer’s Digest Inspirational Category.  Letters to Luke is available at http://littledovepress.com/

Highly recommended non-fiction for adults:From Pharaoh to the Father by Kay Murdy, who is the co-coordinator of the Catholic Bible Institute for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is absolutely jam packed with spiritual information about the Lord’s Prayer and provides a great depth of information from which to spend contemplative time with God.  From Pharaoh to Father is available at http://www.daily-word-of-life.com/kay’s_writings2.htm

Highly recommended fiction for teens and adults:The Story of Peace by Miriam Ezeh is a beautiful story of chaste love and right relationships and has been heralded as “required reading” for every teenager and adult.  The Story of Peace is available at http://www.ninevehscrossing.com/Books-Media-Youth.html

Also recommended fiction for teens and adults is Emily’s Hope by Ellen Gable and The Green Coat by Rosemary McDunn which are both available on Amazon. Highly recommended fiction for pre-teens and early teens:My Big Feet by Joan L. Kelly is that perfect combination of plot, characters, and our Catholic faith and has received a five star review from Lisa Hendey, CE contributor and webmaster of Catholic Mom.  My Big Feet is available at http://jlkellyshamrockstories.com/

Higly Recommended books on Mary and Prayer:Behold Your Mother by Heidi Hess Saxton available at www.ChristianWord.com.  Heidi’s book does have an imprimatur for anyone interested in using it in their religious education formation classes or as gift giving for Catechumens or for the ideal Mother’s Day “card.”  Heidi’s book is also a featured 2 minute video on YouTube and mentions Cafe Theology!  Check it out (you may need to copy and paste this address in your browser) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zR0003wTzQ

Highly recommended pro-life and vocation building books for young Catholic children:Joseph’s Hands by Kety Sabatini has been endorsed by Archbishop Foley of Alabama and has been featured on a number of Catholic radio programs.  Joseph’s Hands is available at http://ninevehscrossing.com/index.html Isabel’s Sister by Kety Sabatini is also highly recommended reading for young Catholic children and is available at http://ninevehscrossing.com/BooksChildren.html

May you and your family enjoy many of these fine works by Catholic authors and be enriched by their faithfulness to our Catholic Church.

51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52 The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, `If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.’
53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?”
54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.
55 But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

 by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D.  |  Catholic Exchange

Lent is a time of introspection.  We read Exodus and watch the Israelites grumble, even after the amazing things God had done for them (Ex 17:3-7).  In them, we recognize ourselves.  For many of us, then, Lent is time for the spiritual equivalent of New Year’s resolutions.  We set aside time to work on ourselves for forty days so we don’t end up wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years.  We do things to burn off the excess fat that’s weighing us down, try to improve our spiritual diet, and do some spiritual exercises to strengthen the muscles we call “virtues.”

But in the early days of the Church, Lent was not so much a time to focus inward.  It was time for Catholics to focus outward.  It was time not just for personal growth, but for growth of the Church. 

In the days of the Early Church Fathers, did the whole Church fast, pray, and give alms for the forty days preceding Easter?  Absolutely.  But Catholics did this primarily for the sake of others rather than themselves.  There were two groups of people that were the main beneficiaries of this prayer and penance: new Catholics to be baptized at Easter and lapsed Catholics to be readmitted to communion.  These folks were praying and fasting during Lent to break the power of darkness in preparation for their crossing over the Jordan into the Promised Land through baptism and penance.

We ought to recover this ancient tradition and do penance for and with those who will enter or return to the Church at Easter.  But there is something else that we should do.  There are millions more who should be returning or entering.  We need to tell them about Jesus.  Continue reading the article here…

By ROY HOFFMAN Newhouse News Service
MOBILE, Ala. — It was the week before Thanksgiving, and Stan Chassin, a 59-year-old investment counselor in Mobile, had been nervous all day.

He had heard that a bully from his youth was coming back to town. Tommy Tarrants had terrorized Chassin in high school by cursing him for being Jewish, grabbing him by the throat and threatening to kill him.

Chassin had watched from afar as Tarrants left school, joined up with the Ku Klux Klan and was wounded in a police ambush while attempting to blow up the home of a Jewish man in Meridian, Miss.

“I realized he could have killed me,” Chassin says.

Tarrants was now 60 and returning to Mobile, not as a Klansman, but as a profoundly changed man.

Years before, he had published a memoir, The Conversion of a Klansman, and a decade ago had become president of the C.S. Lewis Institute, a Washington, D.C., organization dedicated to helping people grow spiritually.

Tarrants was to be the guest speaker at a dinner in town at Spring Hill Presbyterian Church. Chassin, wary about what he had heard of Tarrants’ transformation, wanted to see for himself.

“My father always taught me to confront my fears,” Chassin says. “I had a chance to unload my demons. But the closer I got to that day, I wondered, ‘Do I have the internal fortitude to go through with this?’”

When he walked into the Fellowship Hall at Spring Hill Presbyterian Church and saw Tarrants, Chassin had a flashback to high school. “I thought, he’s not so big, I could have taken him!”

Tall and slightly stooped, Tarrants had no hint about him of the long-ago teenager’s swagger or rant.

As Tarrants was introduced by the Rev. Norman H. McCrummen III, Tarrants seemed to Chassin “almost frail.”

With his gently modulated voice, and touches of a dinner speaker’s humor, Tarrants spoke of his slide toward militant bigotry, how he learned to despise blacks and loathe Jews. He talked about sin as “a cancer” that had come into his body and heart.

He told of being in a prison cell, of reading classical philosophy and Scripture, of a profound change in his heart as he came to understand the true meaning of God in his life. He spoke of grace, of forgiveness.

After Tarrants finished his speech, he asked for questions. Chassin hesitated. Then he stood.

“It’s hard facing you,” he told Tarrants.

Chassin recounted the story of how Tarrants had grabbed him by the throat at school, calling him anti-Semitic slurs.

A few others in the audience were worried, at first, what Chassin might do — getting even after all these years for the long-simmering aggression.

As Chassin’s voice got stronger, he grew calmer. As he spoke, he saw a look of pain on Tarrants’ face. Read more

Colleen Carroll Campbell (This originally was published December 20)
As Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, pastors are struggling to draft sermons that will make the 2,000-year-old Christmas story come alive for the faithful who pack the pews on Christmas day. They can expect a receptive audience: A recent Harris poll found that 72 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is God or the son of God and 60 percent believe that He was born of a virgin.

Such widespread Christian belief, though admittedly less robust than most pastors would like to see, is significant when considering its consequences. The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation at the heart of the Christmas story declares that God began His life on earth as a human embryo, one like us in all things but sin. The implications of that belief are profound: If God took on human flesh in its earliest stages, then human bodily life must deserve not only respect, but reverence.

Of course, more Americans profess belief in the biblical Christmas story than seriously ponder its consequences. How else to explain our facile acceptance of the idea that our minds are synonymous with our selves and our bodies are merely the matter that our minds inhabit, with no intrinsic meaning of their own?

We are, no doubt, obsessed with our bodies. We turn to cosmetics counters and diet plans to perfect our physical appearance. We chase after physical pleasures and bodily health with great vigor.

Yet we also disparage the significance of our bodies. We tend to identify our personhood with our ability to reason and will. And we believe that we can do whatever we wish with our bodies as long as we don’t hurt anyone else — anyone, that is, who counts as a person with these same abilities to reason and will. Read more

Mark Shea
Washingtonians like me have to cope with extremes in the weather. Whether it’s summer or winter, the weather is always extremely temperate.

So, for instance, every June it rains. If you live in Washington, you know this and you know how to quell the sense of violated rights when, this June and yet again, it rains. You tell yourself (and the members of the appropriate 12 Step group you’ve joined to help you cope with the weather) the following:

“Hi, I’m Mark”

“Hi, Mark!”

“You know, it rains every June in Washington and I’m okay with that.”

“We’re okay with that too, Mark.”

In time you can grow to love such weather–the way Winston Smith came to love Big Brother in 1984.

But Out-of-Staters, people from California and other weaklings whose mental stability requires constant subsidies of sunshine and gladness are often not equipped to cope. Some rely on denial strategies for years such that every June it rains and every June, these sad wretches remark aloud (though really they are only struggling to convince themselves): “What an unusually rainy June we’re having!”

This can go on for years until they either face the Truth or move back to California.

But that’s not the half of it. Because, just as often, we Washingtonians have to face the other brutal reality: we’ve only had snow for Christmas twelve times in the past century. Twelve times! That’s 88 times in the past 100 years when we’ve had to listen to “White Christmas”, get sparkly cards full of 19th Century scenes with sleighs jingling merrily through wintry forests, and watch movies where–after the family has come back together following the crisis that threatened to tear it apart and everybody has learned the True Meaning of Christmas™–the child looks out the window with eyes full of wonder and cries out, “Mom! Dad! Look! It’s snowing!” (”Family gathers round window and snuggles close together. Camera pulls back through window to remote aerial shot of cozy, light-filled country home nestled in the woods as snow falls from the night sky. Black out. Roll credits and swelling orchestral closing theme.”)

Yes, it can be a little tiring to endure that year after year and to be forced to remember year after year that you live in the town that gives you this sort of weather as well as the Seattle Mariners. It can seem a bit unfair.

And yet. I’m not going to complain too much. Why? Because I love where I live! It’s really that simple. Yeah, we don’t get the Lake Wobegon winters with tons of snow. Yeah, we don’t get the California heat or the Hawaiian gorgeousness. But man oh man, do Washingtonians live in a beautiful place! In the summer, especially July through September, there’s no place more wonderful on earth. No humidity, cool breezes, your choice of salt water or mountains within a hour’s drive of one another, Edenic places to hike and camp and ride bikes. Paradise. Read more

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Mon Dec 10, 6:59 PM ET

Mormons have less heart disease — something doctors have long chalked up to their religion’s ban on smoking. New research suggests that another of their “clean living” habits also may be helping their hearts: fasting for one day each month.
A study in Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is based, found that people who skipped meals once a month were about 40 percent less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast.

People did not have to “get religion” to benefit: non-Mormons who regularly took breaks from food also were less likely to have clogged arteries, scientists found.

They concede that their study is far from proof that periodic fasting is good for anyone, but said the benefit they observed poses a theory that deserves further testing.

“It might suggest these are people who just control eating habits better,” and that this discipline extends to other areas of their lives that improves their health, said Benjamin Horne, a heart disease researcher from Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

He led the study and reported results at a recent American Heart Association conference. The research was partly funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Roughly 70 percent of Utah residents are Mormons, whose religion advises abstaining from food on the first Sunday of each month, Horne said.

Researchers got the idea to study fasting after analyzing medical records of patients who had X-ray exams to check for blocked heart arteries between 1994 and 2002 in the Intermountain Health Collaborative Study, a health registry. Of these patients, 4,629 could be diagnosed as clearly having or lacking heart disease — an artery at least 70 percent clogged.

Researchers saw a typical pattern: only 61 percent of Mormons had heart disease compared to 66 percent of non-Mormons. They thought tobacco use probably accounted for the difference. But after taking smoking into account, they still saw a lower rate of heart disease among Mormons and designed a survey to explore why. Read more

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