BIG C CATHOLICS

Redemptive Suffering: Offering Christ Crucified in our own Flesh: Talk IV of IV of a Lenten Series from LoveAndResponsibility.Org on Vimeo . H/T Discover Happiness

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint.  -- St. Ignatius of Loyola

The Annunciation is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would become the Theotokos (God-bearer). Despite being a virgin, Mary would miraculously conceive a child who would be called the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her son Jesus, meaning “YHWH delivers”. Most of Christianity observes this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, nine full months before Christmas. According to the Bible (Luke 1:26), the Annunciation occurred in “the sixth month” of Elizabeth's pregnancy with the child who would later become known as John the Baptist.

Abortion Blackout is calling upon the faithful in the United States of America to wear black every Friday as a public witness to the horror of abortion and as a call for it's end in this country

Merciful and loving God, you give us* this Lenten desert for our purification, for our chance to become your faithful friends. Because we are wearied by our sins and exhausted by the weight of our guilt, the devil seeks to tempt us further away from you. Let us hear his false promises with your ears and see his counterfeit prizes through your eyes. With your Word in our mouths, we reject his poisonous gifts and run to you for our salvation.

Rallies for religious freedom are scheduled to take place March 23 at noon at over 100 cities around the country. The rallies, coordinated by Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League and Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, have gained the endorsement of dozens of pro-life organizations. “The Obama administration’s attempt to force all Americans to buy coverage for sterilization and contraceptives, including drugs that induce abortion, is a radical incursion into freedom of conscience,” Stand Up for Religious Freedom states on its web site. “The Rally for Religious Freedom--popularly known as the ‘Stand Up Rally’--will launch an ongoing, grassroots effort to stand in solidarity with the American Catholic bishops and other religious leaders denouncing the HHS Mandate, educate the general public about what’s truly at stake in this controversy, and demand that Congress reverse this assault on our cherished freedoms--or effect that reversal through the democratic proce

Under the new HHS mandate, Catholic schools, hospitals & churches will be forced to participate in practices that are contrary to Catholic Church teaching. We must stand up and demand that our religious liberty is respected. For more visit: www.catholicvote.org

There is an excellent station streaming online at AveMariaRadio.net  for faithful Catholics and seeking Christians. I highly recommend this apos- tolate and the programming it offers.

Today's Collect: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that by Saint Joseph's intercession you Church may constantly watch over the unfolding of the mysteries of salvation, whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care. And in this day and age when the free exercise of our faith is under attack in our land, the intercessions of good St. Joseph, protector of Mary and Jesus, patron of the Church, is especially needed.

The Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom is being held Friday, March 23 at noon , local time, outside federal buildings, Congressional offices and historic sites across the country . The theme for the Rally is “Stand Up for Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate!”   Click here for rally locations

Click here for rally locations .

The goal of life is to be with God forever... -- St. Ignatius of Loyola

The number of Catholics in the world and the number of deacons, priests and bishops all increased in 2010, while the number of women in religious orders continued to decline, according to Vatican statistics. At the end of 2010, the worldwide Catholic population reached 1.196 billion, an increase of 15 million or 1.3 percent, slightly outpacing the global population growth rate, which was estimated at 1.1 percent, said a statement published March 10 by the Vatican press office. Catholics as a percentage of the global population "remained stable at around 17.5 percent," it said. The statement reported a handful of the statistics contained in the 2012 "Annuario Pontificio," a yearbook containing information about every Vatican office, as well as every diocese and religious order in the world. Officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State and its Central Office of Church Statistics presented the first copy of the 2012 yearbook to Pope Benedict XVI during an audi

Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? Some things are more important than high gas prices or a faltering economy. They are life, marriage and freedom. This November, Catholics must stand up and protect their sacred rights and duties.

The following is from the Media Blog of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was posted Friday, March 9, by Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the USCCB. The Amish are exempt from the entire health care reform law. So are members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. Yet, when the Catholic Church asks for a religious exemption from just one regulation issued under the law – the mandate that all employers, including religious institutions, must pay for sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs – the Administration balks. The government respects the First Amendment that guarantees the right to freely exercise one’s religious beliefs, but only to a point. In the health care law it picks and chooses which beliefs it respects. The Amish do not believe in insurance, and the government understands. Christian Care Ministry believes people should form a religious community and pay medical bills for one another, and th

By Matthew Balan On Monday's CBS This Morning, correspondent Michelle Miller highlighted one of the 77 married Catholic priests in the U.S. who converted from the Episcopal Church in recent years and boosted a favorite pet cause of left-leaning dissenting Catholics: ordaining married men. Miller trumpeted that Father Doug Grandon's example " begs the question: should all Catholic priests have the option to marry? " Father Grandon himself leaned towards that concept when he stated that "the most we could say is that having a married priest...allows them to look and see how it would work if they wanted to change it." The morning show's religious and faith contributor, Father Edward Beck, also acknowledged that the several dozen former Episcopalian clerics are " bringing a whole liberal notion with them ," but also noted one of the main reasons for Catholic clerical celibacy - that parish priests can devote all 24 hours of each day to their mi

The Catholic Church offers an easy plenary indulgence (with the usual conditions) to the faithful who recite the following prayer before a crucifix after having received Communion on any Friday in Lent. A plenary indulgence, you'll remember, remits all the temporal punishment due to personal sins - eternal punishment is remitted in baptism and sacramental confession. You may pray the prayer in either Latin or your vernacular: En ego, o bone et dulcissime Jesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei, spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum paenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere; dum magno animi affectu et dolore tua quinque vulnera mecum ipse considero, ac mente contemplor, illud prae oculis habens, quod iam in ore ponebat tuo David Propheta de te, o bone Iesu: "Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos; dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea." (Grant 8 § 1, 2º in

Fr. Frank Pavone In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord declares: “O My people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them.” The Lord is promising that He will return the exiles to their own land, and He is also promising the future resurrection from the dead and our entrance into the promised land of heaven. Through Ezekiel, God is proclaiming that He is the God of Life, and that we are the People of Life. That is why we are pro-life. To believe in God and to work for salvation means we work against anything that destroys life. The God Who promises to open our graves does not want us to send children into their graves. Let the evangelizing work of the Church speak strongly for life!

Blessed saint Patrick, glorious Apostle of Ireland, who didst become a friend and father to me for ages before my birth, hear my prayer and accept, for God, the sentiments of gratitude and veneration with which my heart is filled. Through thee I have inherited that faith which is dearer than life. I now make thee the representative of my thanks, and the mediator of my homage to Almighty God. Most holy Father and patron of my country, despise not my weakness; remember that the cries of little children were the sounds that rose, like a mysterious voice from heaven, and invited thee to come amongst us. Listen, then, to my humble supplication; may my prayer ascend to the throne of God, with the praises and blessings which shall ever sanctify thy name and thy memory. May my hope be animated by the patronage and intercession of our forefathers, who now enjoy eternal bliss and owe their salvation, under God, to thy courage and charity. Obtain for me grace to love God with my whole heart,

Dear Clinic Worker, You entered the abortion industry because you wanted to help women. You were told that illegal abortion was dangerous. You didn’t want to see that happen to anyone. You came in with the right intentions. Or, maybe you just needed a job. Maybe you really didn’t know what Planned Parenthood was all about. Now you know. Now you see what abortion really is and you may feel uncomfortable…but how do you leave? You may be a single mom, or maybe you are woman who is supporting her whole family during this terrible economy. Maybe this is the first time you have ever had a job that offered insurance…not just for you, but for your children also. How will you support your family? Aren’t you doing the right thing anyway? Maybe you aren’t sure anymore. You see people outside praying. You don’t know what they are doing. Are they praying for you or just the women going in to have abortions? You are told every day that they are dangerous and want to harm you. Do they? You have s

"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society." - John Paul II 

Mary Chastain Last week The Huffington Post published Larry Doyle’s “satire” article “ The Jesus-Eating Cult of Rick Santorum .” It’s a disgusting piece of bigotry that’s disguised as satire. I think Mr. Doyle should leave The Simpsons” and work on “ South Park” where they perfectly nail satire every single week. I even enjoy their satire episodes on the Catholic Church. The best part about “South Park” though, is they are consistent and will go after everyone. No one is sacred. I’m a Catholic. I converted in April 2006. When I went through RCIA I was amazed at how the Church was more than willing to admit their mistakes in the past. They’re not perfect. Far from it! But they admit their mistakes. My teacher even told me he didn’t blame Martin Luther for rebelling against the Church because they were corrupt. But that’s not enough for people. But let’s dissect and refute Mr. Doyle’s hit piece. He mentions the supposed “bloody jihads his [Santorum] so-called church has carried o