Category: Archived
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Linda Taylor was putting her children to bed one evening when her youngest, in kindergarten asked, Mommy, if the world ended today would I still have to return my library books?
Linda was caught off guard at first, forced to think quickly about her response about the reality of the end time. She chose, like most of us, I imagine, to take the easier way out by responding to the more direct question about the books. But the little girl’s question is a good one in that it challenges us as Christians to be ready for ‘we know not the day or the hour.’
Are we ready to face the end of our earthly lives and turn everything over to God? Seneca once wrote: “That day you fear as being the end of all things is the birthday of your eternity.”
Believing in Jesus is a sign of contradiction to the world. When everything seems to be in turmoil, and evil things are happening with greater frequency, we are reminded in our faith of what is really important; just when our life seems to world to be over, we have only just begun to live.
When people persecute and ridicule us for what we believe, we grow stronger and holier in His sight. So, my dear friends fear not the arrow that flies by day; fear only those things which will hinder your entrance into heaven.
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
In the readings given to us by the Church, the Lord sternly warns us about storing up treasure for ourselves when we are not ‘rich in the sight of God.’ Ecclesiastes asks, ‘What does a man gain for all his toil,’ except that he has labored much? ‘God turns us all back to dust.’
To those who have an abundance, Jesus holds up a mirror. What do we see? ‘Me, My and Mine? Or do you see ta caregiver, an almsgiver, the face of a compassionate person?
The rich man in the Gospel was aggressively self-absorbed. He went out of his way not to share his wealth with anyone. He lived in a little world, surrounded on the north, south, east and west by himself.
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
In the 1960’s all-pro star Jerry Kramer wrote a best-seller called Instant Replay. In it he asks this question, “What is the purpose of my life beyond football?”
In the 1980’s he wrote another book called: Distant Replay. It opens with this question, “What have I done with my life?” He concludes in this book that the one thing he regrets not doing was handing on solid Christian values to his children.
The life story of Jerry Kramer parallels the Gospel today and challenges us to ask similar questions of our own life: How I am making the world a better place to live, to learn, to work and to pray. How am I making our lacerated Church a holier Body? How am I contributing to the maintenance of peace, security and self-esteem for all those I meet?
Join Father Cioppi on a Guided Tour of France
Complete Itinerary for France Trip
Link to trip registration: https://www.grouptravelexperiences.com/booking
Enter the Group Number as G003270
14-24 OCTOBER 2019
PLEASE JOIN MDP PARISH FOR A TRIP THROUGH FASCINATING FRANCE WITH A VISIT TO LOURDES AND OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
- World War II Battlefields of Normandy in this 75th Anniversary Year and the American Cemetery
- Full-Day Tour of Parish, including Notre Dame Cathedral; Rue de Bac (Miraculous Medal); Sacre Coeur and Montmartre
- Guided visit of the Island of Saint Michael
- Guided visit to Versailles
- Full day guided tour of Lisieux (Shrine of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower)
- Visit Nevers, the resting place of Saint Bernadette
- Guided Tour of the Papal Palace in Avignon
- Full day visit to the Shrine at Lourdes
- Visit the Birthplace of Saint Vincent De Paul in Puoy on the way to the town of Bordeaux
DURING THE TRIP, THERE WILL BE TWO WINE-TASTING EXCURSIONS –
CHATEAUNEUF DE PAPE AND BORDEAUX
DETAILS:
- Nine nights accommodations
- Nine Breakfasts
- Six planned Dinners
- English-speaking tour Escort throughout
Price starts at $3,653 per person, Land only, based on Double Occupancy. If there are more than 35 participants, the price will reflect the discount.
FOR INFORMATION
www.ventrescatravel.net
215.674.7662
Building a Culture of Religious Freedom
Building a culture of religious freedom
Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Posted July 15, 2019
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
Alliance Defending Freedom Summit, Dana Point, California
July 9, 2019
[Archbishop Chaput offered the following keynote remarks on July 9 to the Summit 2019 conference of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).]
Back in April Gerard Baker, the Wall Street Journal’s editor at large, wrote a column that I hope every person in the audience today will track down and read.[1] The title was “Persecuted Christians And Their Quiescent Leaders,” and he hammered home two facts. Christians of every tradition – Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox – are now the most widely and brutally persecuted religious community in the world. And too many Christian leaders in too many countries, including our own, are too cowardly to name it for what it is — especially when it comes at the hands of Muslim extremists.
Cowardice is not a word you’ll find in the vocabulary of the Alliance Defending Freedom. And the threats to religious liberty in our own country come from a different, shrewder, but every bit as ugly brand of extremism. So it’s a blessing and a joy for me to be with you today. Courage, like cowardice, is infectious, and very few people can match the courage and character that permeate the entire ADF team. Michael Farris, Paula and Alan Sears, Amy Shepard, and so many others: These are extraordinary persons doing extraordinary work, and I count it a privilege to admire them. But I’ll come back to that at the end of my comments. Continue reading “Building a Culture of Religious Freedom”
Don’t Worry If You Missed the First Sittings for Our New 2020 Parish Photo Directory!
We are offering another time for photo sittings so that families with children in college might be able to come together for their photo on December 27th and December 28th. We hope that you are planning to be a part of our new Parish Directory! Please remember that the directory is an EXTREMELY useful tool for the Parish Staff. We truly appreciate your willingness to participate in this event.
Please click on the link shown below, log-in with PA851 and the password: photos (case sensitive) to sign-up to have your photo included in our upcoming Parish Photo Directory.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
How many times have we heard the story of the Good Samaritan? It is one of those stories we hold deep in the treasury of our lives. But, how many times do we take that story out and give it a new face, a new relevance.
Service in the name of Jesus is a state of mind and thus a state of the heart. Martin Luther King once said, “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the Good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
How many times do you imitate the Good Samaritan so that it does not remain just words on a page but the real history of your Christian life?
“For this command is not too mysterious and remote for you. No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” If spiritual sloth keeps you from becoming a good Samaritan, then through diligence in your practice of corporal and spiritual works of mercy and regular confession to a priest, you may conquer that vice.
In conquering the vice of laziness and embracing once again the fullness of the Word of God, you will be re-ignited to “love the Lord, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
If you act on these words, Jesus will live in you.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The seventy-two in the Gospel this morning seem somewhat skeptical of the power Jesus gives them to bestow peace, to cure the sick and to survive among wolves like lambs. What they need is faith to believe in the prophet Isaiah and to believe Christ in His Word.
The grace of Jesus Christ is that force beyond ourselves by which God in his mercy makes the impossible be in our lives.
Helen Keller could neither see nor hear. Yet she became a great public speaker. One night after a lecture, a reporter asked her what her one wish was in her life. The reporter thought she would say, I want to see and hear. Helen thought for a minute however and answered, ‘I wish for world peace.’
Being servants of the Lord, means working to have a strong faith in the power Jesus gives us to change the world, one person at a time.
The first step is becoming silent, fifteen minutes at first: no music, no media, just the name of Jesus. Second, practice virtue on people around you.
In her memoirs, Indira Gandhi wrote, “you can’t shake hands with a clinched fist.” Then open your hands, let them relax; lift them upward and you will find that this is the symbol for prayer.
Take the power Jesus gives you to change the world today and use it to help him build the Kingdom of God. This will make you truly happy.
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Anyone who keeps looking back is of no use for the Kingdom of God.” All of us like to hang on to memories, pictures of old friends, circumstances the way they used to be. However, these ‘hangers on,’ loose some sense of who is in charge of things.
There was an Olympic gold medal gymnast, Nadia Comaneci whose trainer was Bela Karolyi. He was an international figure in the world of gymnastics. Being from a Soviet Bloc Nation, the government sponsored his every move. He trained so many bright stars in gymnastics the communist regime gave him whatever he thought he needed to succeed.
From Catholic Philly