+JMJ+ There is a “Call to Intense Prayer: Boston Archdiocese Responds to Satanic Temple’s Convention.” The Rosary thread on Twitter tonight will be part of this response. I hope you’ll join me.
Continue reading “Urgent call for prayer tonight and this weekend”
Pope Francis has asked the faithful to unite in prayer every day during May to pray the Rosary to end the pandemic. (I found out today, May 3rd.)
Continue reading “Uniting around the world to pray the Rosary to end the pandemic”“Guided by the Shrines around the world, all the faithful during the month of May unite in the recitation of the Holy Rosary to ask for the end of the pandemic and the resumption of social and work activities.”
+JMJ+ Two things for tonight: first, a note about the virtual Catholic Bible conference that starts tomorrow. I registered already and then ran over here to tell you about it. Looks really interesting and I’m excited about it. Second, I’ve been working on a blog plan for the year and I’m looking forward to that, too.
There will be lots of free content at the Catholic Bible conference, I think, and a premium tier gets you continuing access to the content with downloadables and such. That’s what I need, something I can access way after the thing is over because I can hardly ever sit down and pay attention while these things are actually happening. More about the Take and Read: A Journey Into the Bible and a video below.
Continue reading “A new year and a renewed focus”
+JMJ+ This is the most important election of my lifetime. This is the time for us to choose which way we shall go: to continue the great experiment that is the U.S.A. or to go down the path to socialism with all the horrors that entails. I don’t want that dark dystopian future for us and I hope you don’t either. I put together Vote 2020 (a voting resource page) and I’ll stick this post to the top of the blog for a few days. Vote your conscience but please form your conscience well first.
Continue reading “Voting and a Well-Formed Catholic Conscience”
+JMJ+ In lieu of a Father’s Day post I’m inviting any and all concerned Catholic Christians to join me in praying the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, followed by the Rosary on Sunday, June 21, 2020, on Twitter, in reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for all the offenses committed throughout the world today. There may be some witches, satanists, luciferians, and others gathering together today in various cities in an attempt to cast spells to accomplish their twisted agenda (marxist, globalist, sick). I’m not going to link to their pages but a search of the web or social media should turn up something.
Continue reading “Divine Mercy and Rosary today beginning at 3pm CDT”
NOTE: This post was originally written during Easter time and while I was doing a temporary daily Twitter thread for the Divine Mercy devotion. I’m not currently doing those, so I’m moving the Divine Mercy Threads section to the end of the Live Twitter Rosary page, Rosary Project Live Archives.
The Live Twitter Rosary In Time of Pandemic and Turmoil
+JMJ+ You’re probably already praying about the Coronavirus. I’m offering two ways for us to pray together via Twitter threads. You can join live or use them later. More details in this post. God bless and Happy Easter, y’all!
I’m continuing to post the Live Twitter Rosary prayer threads on Tuesdays and Fridays at 8pm EDT, 7pm CDT. I plan to do that until this thing is crushed and over with. (I may change the days at some point but for right now I’m keeping it to Tuesdays and Fridays to keep Mondays and Thursdays open for posting here on the blog.) (See below for how to join in.)
How to Join In and Please Do!
Follow me or watch for the threads (I usually post the welcome tweet a few minutes early and pin it to my profile) on Twitter and please do join in! You can use the intentions I post or use your own and post them, too, if you like. I’m posting links to the completed threads Rosary Project Live Archives page so you can use them anytime. (And the myriad mistakes I make while posting them live will be immortalized for all to see. Awright. Good stuff. Keeps me humble.)
Thank you for visiting and reading. I hope you’ll join me in prayer—on the threads or otherwise. Until next time, whoever and wherever you are, please stay safe and well. May the Lord bless and keep you and yours, and may His peace be always with you. Amen. +JMJ+
Divine Mercy Novena In Time of Pandemic
Please consider joining me in praying for those affected by, and for an end to, the Coronavirus pandemic. I’m posting Live Twitter Divine Mercy prayer threads daily at 3pm EDT, 2pm CDT, until Divine Mercy Sunday. May post them beyond that, we’ll see. (See below for how to join in.)
EWTN has a PDF booklet you can use for the Divine Mercy novena. I didn’t realize remember soon enough to use it from the start, but now I’m including the novena intentions and a screenshot of the days’ intentions and prayers in the threads. Hey, by the time it’s over I should have the threads all nice and organized. Oy! Sigh. ;)
The other intentions, the ones I included at first (and still do) are modified versions of the ones that Pope St. John Paul II gave us to use to end the culture of death, the ones that you’ll see on the Divine Mercy chaplet pages here on site.
Updated March 26, 5am: I’ll make a separate page later for the Live Twitter Rosary Threads. Until then here’s the link for the first one, from March 24. Also edited the post to show that I changed the way I post the thread, just a little.
Remember the Live Twitter Rosary Thread? (On Twitter known as the #RosaryProject.*) I’m bringing it back while the Coronavirus is affecting so many of us worldwide. If you missed the Live Twitter Rosary Threads the first time around, I hope you’ll join in this time. The schedule is Tuesdays and Fridays at 7pm Central Daylight Savings Time.
Continue reading “The Live Twitter Rosary Thread Returns”
You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it. I heard it today in a conversation I had while waiting for tires to be put on my car. To paraphrase: The decision to abort is a difficult one, but it’s better than letting those poor children end up in orphanages. I beg to differ. I am one of those poor children who ended up in an orphanage. Thanks be to God! Who in her right mind would think that death was preferable to having a fighting chance at life? Who in his right mind would think, because something might happen to a child at some point in his or her life, that murdering that child at the outset was the better, the nobler, the Christian choice?!
Boggles my mind. Absolutely boggles my mind. Especially the same person tells me that if something is in the Word of God, then that something is as if written in stone and cannot be changed or ignored. The day of worship cannot be changed. Oh, the calamity if that is changed. But the commandment against killing an innocent (which is what the commandment is actually about in the Hebrew, not just killing, but murder of an innocent)–that is less important than the day of worship?
Seems to me that which day we worship on is a point of discipline and can be changed by the Church which is the Body of Christ and was given authority over such things by Him. But the commandment against murder is not a point of discipline. The blood of Cain’s brother cried out to God from the ground upon which it had been spilled. The blood of so many innocent children who were sacrificed to Moloch caused that land to be cursed. That was the land that was known as the Valley of Gehenna, a place where nothing would grow and no one wanted to live there. The people used it as a trash dump and the fires burned there both day and night.
The blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to God our Father from the abortuaries in our own land now. How can God bless us and our country while we continue to spill the blood of the children He meant to be blessings for us? How can God bless us while we continue to pay millions and millions of dollars to those who shed that innocent blood here and abroad? We even tie our foreign aid to acceptance of our exported genocide! We have slain as many as 55 million children in this country alone since Roe v Wade. About a billion worldwide! How can God bless us when we do such things?
Is it any wonder that the world is in such a mess? Is it any wonder that people treat each other worse and worse every day when they think nothing of killing every day at least as many children as the terrorists killed on 9/11?
Who are the terrorists? We the country who supports and exports the genocide against humanity–we are the terrorists!
Just saw this on EWTN Live: the bishops of the USCCB have called for a simple novena, “Nine Days of Prayer, Penance and Pilgrimage” toward a culture of life. The novena will be from January 19-27, 2013. You can sign up for e-mail or text updates and get more information at the USCCB website. I think it’s a great idea. The battle we are in must be waged at the spiritual level and we need to pray together to defeat our common ancient enemy.
St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
God bless you.
The election grows nearer but I still hear some Catholics say that they have not yet decided who to vote for. So I put together a short page of resources to help you vote your Catholic conscience. Sadly, many have not yet formed their consciences, and many Catholics do not even know what that means. The Vote page will help you begin. First, start learning your faith (this is the Year of Faith, after all)! Then live it. Everywhere. Yes, in the voting booth, too. If we don’t do everything as Catholic Christians, then our faith is so much wind, as in, hot air.
Resources to Help You Form and Vote Your Catholic Conscience so you can LIVE your faith.
Note: This post was written back in 2012. A lot has happened since then but I think this still stands pretty much as is, so I’m not going to change it.
[Brief list of voting guides at the end of this post and on the new Vote page.] People have told me here at the blog, in emails, on forums, in conversations, that being Catholic has nothing to do with politics, has nothing to do with choosing a candidate, has nothing to do with any part of life except one hour on Sunday. Most of these people are not Catholic or they would realize many of us don’t go to Mass just that one hour on Sunday; many of us go during the week, too, and some go every day of their lives and always have. Even so, being Catholic is not just about what we do at Mass, no matter how many times a week we attend.
And voting as a Catholic is not merely a matter of prayer and reflection, but prayer and reflection on the teachings of the Church, listening to the priests and bishops giving guidance concerning the teachings of the Church, and doing our best to live as faithful Catholics abiding by the teachings of the Church. Yes, we have to follow our consciences. But first —FIRST–we have to FORM our consciences! And how do we form our consciences? By listening to our priests and bishops, the Chief Bishop, and studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the marvelous teaching documents written by the Popes (including but not limited to the last two Popes, the late Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI).
There is absolutely no excuse for any Catholic old enough to vote not to know his or her faith. You can read the Catechism of the Catholic Church (here or here or here) and/or study the Catechism and the documents written by the Popes and the documents of Vatican II, and much more, all on the web and all for free. The bishops of the USCCB have been trying to teach people for some time now and the “faithful” blithely ignore them and say they can follow their own consciences. Without forming them!
Yes, some bishops are less than stellar examples. So don’t follow their examples! But do as they say, the same way Jesus told the disciples to do what the Pharisees said do. But He told them not to do as the Pharisees did! And besides, a good many bishops are wonderful shepherds and I pray for them every day. They do not have an easy job. Shepherding Catholics is like herding cats. Everybody wants to be his own Pope! Well, there’s only one Pope and he’s in Rome!
So form your Catholic conscience and THEN follow it! Read Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life) and Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). Study them (study guides to Evangelium Vitae and Humanae Vitae). I’ve been told that the Church has yet to rule on abortion being a sin. Newsflash: The Church has taught that abortion is a grave sin since the time of the early Church, in the Didache (in chapter two, really the second paragraph)! And we know that taking it upon ourselves to take an innocent life is prohibited by the Ten Commandments.
So right there, before we go any further, we can see that if a candidate wants to do everything in his power to promote and support abortion and cram it down the throats of the people and refuses to do anything that would limit abortion, which is an intrinsic evil, which means it is always and everywhere a serious and grave sin, then, guess what? A Catholic may not vote for that candidate and say that he is following his Catholic conscience. Because he would be demonstrating that he does not, in fact, have a Catholic conscience!
We can vote for someone who does not share our idea of the intrinsic evil of abortion IF–IF IF IF–we have reason to believe that that person would act in such a way as to limit abortion more than another candidate would. And we do have just this case in our political landscape as I write these words. We must vote in such a way as to limit evil. If you vote for the candidate who has put into positions of authority numerous people formerly connected with the largest abortion provider in this country, then you are not voting to limit evil, you are voting in support of evil. You are voting against a Catholic conscience, which you would demonstrate by your action, by your vote.
This is a grave scandal and for the life of me I cannot understand anyone not understanding this issue or thinking that any issue at all could ever take precedence over LIFE! If you don’t have life, I ask you, then what, pray tell, do you have? Nothing! The economy doesn’t matter if we are happy to ignore the slaughter of millions to get that economy. And the economy certainly doesn’t matter to those who we slaughter! So stop saying that pro-life people are “one issue voters” and then proceeding to say that you are voting on the issue of the economy. Hello! Isn’t that being a “one issue voter”? Isn’t that what you just said we shouldn’t do, reduce our vote to a vote on just one issue? Well, at least, if I “reduce” my vote to “just one issue”, I “reduced” it to the ONE FOUNDATIONAL issue–LIFE ITSELF!
Yes, other matters matter. But Life is the one matter that matters most. Without it, the rest of the issues are empty talk and chatter.
Voting as a Catholic: Live Your Faith, Vote Your Faith!
These links are also on the new Vote page added tonight. I’ll add more as I find them.
To Help You Form Your Catholic Conscience:
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day is going well at the store the next town over. I live in a small town that doesn’t have its own Chick-fil-A; so, even though I threw my back out Saturday over a week ago and even though I hadn’t been out of the house since then until yesterday afternoon, I did manage to hobble out to the car and drive over here to show my support — both moral support and financial — for a company that is not afraid to speak out and stand up for Christian values amidst a firestorm of very vocal opposition. The fact that they aren’t afraid attracts me immensely. Like I always say, the only way to handle a bully is to stand up to him.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Tim 1:7)”
And for more on what the verse means by sound mind (sobriety in some versions):
“and of a sound mind: in the principles and doctrines of the Gospel; and which shows itself in a prudent conduct and behaviour; in sobriety, moderation, temperance, purity, and honesty; all which may be signified by the word here used: and these who have such dispositions and qualities from God, will not easily give way to the enemies of religion, or decline their duty for fear of them (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, quoted on the page containing the quoted Bible verse).”
I hope you’ll show your support today, too. God bless you.
Catholic Heart and Mind 