As a devout Jew and a man of deep faith, Joseph of Nazareth would have been highly familiar with the Scriptural promises of a Messiah. While he surely prayed for His coming, the humble carpenter never could have foreseen the crucial role he himself would play in the daily life of this Messiah for whom he longed.
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All human beings come into the world with a few pieces of standard equipment. There’s the built-in fan club, the professional spin-doctor, and the grievance counselor who specializes in taking our side. Should any of this equipment fail and a weakness or two be accidentally revealed, we have an uncanny ability to bury that fault beneath a glittering pile of exaggeration. Insults are automatically sent into our “calculate revenge” circuitry from which few escape unscathed. Where does this fabulous equipment come from?
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It was a tremendous blessing for me to have had the opportunity to meet Dr. Gianna Emmanuela Molla, the daughter of St Gianna Beretta Molla at the 2015
World Meeting of Families. She was there representing the
St. Gianna Physician’s Guild, whose mission is to unite and encourage Catholic physicians, and those in the health care profession, to promote and defend Catholic principles in a public way by word and example, and to inspire sanctification in their lives. Her inner beauty and humility radiates through her as she carries on the legacy of her mother, who was herself a Catholic physician.
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During a recent speech to Congress, Pope Francis highlighted Dorothy Day, saying, "In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement,” He continued, “Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.”
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“It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
-St. John Paul the Great
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There’s a little bit of Jekyl and Hyde in all of us. The inclination to choose wrong over right is a personal battle everyone has had to fight since Adam and Eve made the original “bad choice” by opting out of paradise for nothing more than one lousy apple.
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“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” –Matthew 6:7-15
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Susan Tassone (Photo courtesy of Our Sunday Visitor)
Lent is a time when we open our hearts more fully to the love and mercy of God through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. What better time to give “prayerful alms” to the Holy Souls in Purgatory which could help to send many souls home to heaven in time for Easter!
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“
Then I said, ‘Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips’…Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. ‘See,’ he said, ‘now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.’” (Isaiah 6:5 – 7)
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I used to think mortification during Lent was something that belonged to the dark ages. Giving up chocolate (which I rarely eat) and fish on Fridays (I love fish) was my speed. Anything rougher than that? Not so much. And then one year the Lord taught me a lesson . . .
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