Fr. Robert Barron on The Holy Trinity

Fr. Robert Barron: "Pope Francis and the New Evangelization"

Why I Became Catholic (And not Buddhist)

The following comes from Catholic Sistas:

One of the questions I get most often when people hear I’m a convert is, “Why did you choose to become Catholic?” I’ve been asked this question by Jews, Baptists, Mormons, atheists, and even Jehovah’s Witnesses. The person who asks the question never says the rest of it, which is, “Why did you choose to become a Catholic INSTEAD of what I am?” These are people of genuine faith, who believe they have found and are living by The Truth. So naturally they want to understand how someone educated and sane could believe so differently.

It’s always a hard question to answer, because I’m sensitive to that unspoken part. I don’t want to insinuate–even accidentally–that they are less intelligent, less holy, or inferior to me as a Catholic. I usually give the “safe” answer, and talk about how my husband and I were drawn continuously to Jesus in the Eucharist. But part of me always yearns to say what G.K. Chesterton said so beautifully:

The difficulty of explaining “why I am Catholic” is that there are 10,000

reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.

I never wanted to be a Catholic. I never even wanted to be a Christian. When my husband convinced me to join him on a quest through major and minor religions nearly 15 years ago, I did it mostly to humor him. I had lived as an avowed atheist for more than a decade and couldn’t imagine that The Truth even existed, much less it could be found. Especially when I couldn’t even accept that God was real.

Fortunately, God literally changed my mind about Him with a thunderbolt. One day, I was reading an article about the human genome project (I was a technical writer), when I was drawn to look at my own hand. What had before been a clever machine of flesh and bone was suddenly revealed to me as a pure miracle of creation. It was truly that instant; one second I was an atheist, and the next I was a believer. I knew with absolute certainty that only an intelligent designer–God–could have created something as incredible as me!

Read the rest here.

Taizé: Communion in Prayer

He is Lord (Nightfever London)

Salesian Polish Martyrs: Young Men of Faith!

The Salesian oratory at Poznań, Poland, has its martyrs: Edward Klinik (23), Francis Kesy (22), Jarogniew Wojciechowski (20), Czesław Józwiak (22), and Edward Kaźmierski (23). Today we celebrate their memorial and thank God for their witness to the faith and to the Salesian Family!The five young men were fully committed to their human and Christian development and were involved in working with their companions, sharing similar interests and their personal and community projects. Arrested within days of each other and imprisoned briefly in different places, they were then put in the same prison and suffered martyrdom the same day and in the same way.
Fr. Vecchi (our Salesian Rector Major at the time of the beatification) spoke about them in this way on the occasion of their beatification: “Each of them had his own particular biography which then became inter-twined with that of the others in the common Salesian setting that prepared them in a human and spiritual way to embrace martyrdom.” These young men give outstanding proof of the strong formative influence of life at the oratory, when there is opportunity for co-responsibility, when the educational approach is personalized and when the Salesians are capable of guiding the youngsters along the path of faith and grace. They were arrested by the Nazis in September 1940 and imprisoned in Fortress VII in Poznań. They were then moved first to the Neukoln prison, and then to Zwickau, where they were questioned and tortured and then condemned to hard labor. Two notes show that we are dealing with giants of the spirit: “God alone knows what we are suffering. Prayer was our only support in the darkest nights and days.” “God has given us this cross, and he is giving us the strength to carry it.” They were condemned to death for treason on August 1, 1942. The verdict was followed by a long silence until one of the five exclaimed: “Thy will be done.” They were condemned simply for belonging to Catholic organizations, which it was suspected might give rise to resistance movements.

Before they died they were able to write to their parents. Reading these lines one is astounded as before the truly great. As an example there are the words written by Francis: “My dearest parents, brothers and sisters, the time has come to say goodbye to you on August 24, the day of Mary Help of Christians … May the Good Lord take me to himself. Don’t have regrets that I am leaving this world so young. I am now in a state of grace. ... I am going to heaven. There I shall pray to God … Pray sometimes for me … I’m going now.” They were taken into the prison yard in Dresden and beheaded. The monthly commemoration of Mary Help of Christians was being celebrated in our communities on that day. For more information on these young martyrs please check out the Salesian site here.

Lose Yourself: Finding Freedom in Mary’s Risky Yes

The following comes from The Catholic Exchange: 

Did she really say that? Did she really mean it? I keep turning back to Luke 1:38, “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’” I take a few minutes to present myself before God in silence. When my mind wanders, I return to the spirit of Mary’s words. How can my heart prepare him room?

Then it hits me.

Only as God’s handmaiden did Mary became the God-bearer.

I want to ask you: when did the New Covenant start? Where was the special place where God became man, “not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of manhood up into God”? It all started in the womb of the virgin Mary. She is the genesis, the cradle, the fountainhead of Christ’s humanity. She is the place where, as John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory.” Mary gave herself—body and soul—to God: and as God’s handmaiden, Mary became the God-bearer.

Now, the incarnation is not like a game of Monopoly. We can’t pull out the board and arrange the pieces and do it all over again. But gentlemen, I want to suggest to you that Mary was just the beginning of what God wants to do in all of us—make us God’s handmaidens. You and me. People who, like Mary, can hear Christ and then say Yes to Christ. So it is that Jesus says in Luke 8:20, “My mother and brothers are those whohear the word of God and do it.”

St. Paul puts it in more muscular terms. He says he is “a slave for Christ” (Rom. 1:1). The way of manliness, for Paul, is “not by way of eye service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Eph. 6:6).

Brothers, if we do not become God’s “handmaidens,” God’s slaves, our lives will be barren, childless, Godless. But if we imitate Our Lady, the ever Virgin Mary, and we hold nothing back—if we say only Yes! to God—we would “conceive” Christ within us, and show his New Covenant to the world.

How can we hear God’s word? He tells us: “The Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (1 Sam. 3:21). God reveals himself by his word. If you want him, you begin with his word. God also reveals himself through his Church. “But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12). When they believed Philip they were baptized. God reveals himself through his Church. To hear God’s word, we must start by seeking him in Scripture and the Church.

How can we, as men of Christ, say Yes to God’s word? When we think only of how we might get hurt, or have been hurt, we do not risk saying Yes to God. We grasp for the wrong things (like control) and come up empty. We do not risk the Gospel, and so we never really know the Gospel. We only know our fears. But gentleman, our Blessed Mother reminds us that we were made for more than worry. Sometimes the manliest thing to do is let go.

Let go. 

Read the rest here.