BIG C CATHOLICS

This post is dedicated to my Father and to fathers everywhere. Icons represent and make present spiritual realities beyond us. Fatherhood is a special icon of God's love. My Dad's fatherly care has sustained our family. Because of him it is easy to believe that God is loving.

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Thirty-five years ago, I worked at a college seminary. There was a seminarian whose parents divorced when he was young, because his father was an alcoholic, and now he was, just getting to know his father. Unfortunately, I had to tell him a few months later that his father had died, beaten with a baseball bat. A number of priests from the seminary went to the funeral. But the Pastor said to us: “I can’t allow you to concelebrate. This guy was the town drunk. We don’t have more than one priest even for our good people. We can’t have so many for this guy!” This is similar to the Gospel story of the woman who wept at the feet of Jesus. The Pharisees were right about her. She was a sinner. In some notorious way she violated the Torah, the law of God. Everybody knew “who and what sort of woman” she was. The Pharisees even turned this against Jesus. He couldn’t be

“Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us. . . “ Psalm 95, also known to Catholics as the Invitatory psalm, is said by most clergy and religious and many lay persons each morning before Morning Prayer. Its first two lines invite us to pray, to sing, to shout with joy and to give praise and thanksgiving. The next three lines expound on the mighty God and His domination over the earth, the mountains, the sea and the dry lands. The next two lines again invite us to pray because He is our God and we are his flock. Lastly, the psalm reminds us of the consequence of challenging and provoking God with our sins just as the Israelites challenged God in the desert after they had been lead from Egypt and had seen the miracles that God had performed. (He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us, or not?" Exodus 17:7) As a consequence of that challenge t

Thought of the Day I believe that the rich are poorer than the poor, because they are often unhappy. The more they have, the more they want. But not everyone is like this. -- Mother Teresa

Calling God “Father” addresses significant omissions and distortions in the current critique of biblical patriarchy and shows how the Bible fostered and might continue to support a high culture of fathering. According to author John Miller, “Due to the marginality of males in the reproductive process, fathering is a cultural acquisition to an extent that mothering is not. When a culture ceases to support a father's involvement with his own children through its teaching, laws, mores, symbols, models and rituals, powerful natural forces take over in favor of the mother-alone family.”

Fr. Michael J. Woolley Do you pray the Rosary daily? Do you want hundreds of thousands of people praying for you? Then join the Rosary Confraternity! The Rosary Confraternity is a 500 year old, world wide, Papal approved movement entrusted to the Dominican Order. Click here for more information and click here to enroll online. There are no meetings or dues, just lots of graces and blessings! “If anyone has the happiness of being in the Confraternity of the Rosary, he has in all corners of the world brothers and sisters who pray for him.” - St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars