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Like Gentiles or Tax Collectors…
23rd Sunday in Ordinary TimeBy Fr. Victor Feltes Jesus teaches us today about how to practice fraternal correction. In short, if a brother or sister in the Church sins against you, approach him or her privately. If that fails to persuade, come again with one or two others. If that does not work, bring the matter to the Church. And “if he refuses to listen even to the Church,” Jesus says, “then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Jesus says to treat an obstinately unrepentant Christian like “a Gentile or a tax collector.” What are we to make of this? How would the Jewish crowds hearing Jesus’ preaching treat Gentiles or tax collectors? The Old Covenant kept Jews and Gentiles (that is, non-Jews) separate. For example, archeologists have found stone signs from the Jewish tem...
In Historic First, Church Beatifies Entire Family at Once: Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and Seven Small Children, Martyred by Nazis in 1944…
Operation “Reinhardt,” a program aimed at murdering all of the Jews in Germany-occupied Poland, began to be implemented in the Ulma family’s area of Poland in late July and early August 1942. The Nazis began to deport the roughly 120 Jews in the Markowa area to a labor camp and extermination camp. Approximately 54 Jews in hiding were found and shot on Dec. 14, 1942. An additional 29 Jews continued to hide in Markowa, including the eight who found refuge with the Ulma family. Early on March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma on the outskirts of Markowa. They discovered the Jewish people hiding on the Ulma farm and executed them. The Nazi police then killed 31-year-old Wiktoria, who was pregnant and in premature labor, and 44-year-old Józef outside their h...
These young people know they have a tough row to hoe in being the missionary disciples they were baptized to be…
I wish all those who find themselves concerned, depressed, befuddled, or angry at the present state of the Church could have spent July 3-21 in that city of saints, Cracow, along with my students and faculty colleagues in the 31st annual assembly of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society (TMS). Our students, who came from the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Georgia, Mexico, India, Croatia, Lithuania, and China were a striking group of young Catholic adults. And their reactions to the 19 days we spent together — in which they brought to the seminar and gave each other at least as much as we on the faculty offered them — suggested that there are in fact a lot of good things going on in Catholicism today: “This seminar has changed my life in every way.” “These we...
“Faith, Beauty and Devotion” — 30 pieces of art spanning four centuries are coming to a Catholic school in Miami. See some of the paintings here…..
Thursday, August 31, 2023 Jim Davis – Florida Catholic This painted cross by an Umbrian master dates to the late 13th century. It’s part of “Faith, Beauty and Devotion,” an upcoming exhibit at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.This richly ornamented text, from 14th century Florence, is part of “Faith, Beauty and Devotion,” an upcoming exhibit at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.The medieval “Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine” was made with tempera and gold. The 15th century work is part of “Faith, Beauty and Devotion,” an upcoming exhibit at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.This Renaissance-era Madonna and Child is part of “Faith, Beauty and Devotion,” an upcoming exhibit at Belen Jesuit Prepa...
Good times, good citizens, and the state of our skies…
Good times, good citizens, and the state of our skies Skip to content Happy Friday friends, And an especially Happy Friday to one occasional reader of these newsletters, my wife. Herself and I celebrated a decade-and-a-half of marriage this week. We had a lovely dinner out, of course. And we did that thing I always assumed middle-aged parents do when they manage a rare night out together — we spent the first 15 minutes drinking wine and sighing “Well, this is nice” contentedly to each other, before moving on to discuss for the rest of the evening our daughter’s continued aversion to Montessori and the comparative quality of her most recent bowel movements. Marking 15 years married has been one of those occasional milestones that creep up behind you and mug you for your sense of...
What is the Church?
[embedded content] Share via: Matt Swaim, Ken Hensley and Kenny Burchard begin a new OTJ series on the Church. When Ken and Kenny were Evangelical pastors, what did they mean by the word “Church?” When Matt was attending different congregations, how did he understand them in relation to one another? Where did each of them get these understandings of what “the Church” is and how it works? Matt, Ken and Kenny kick off the series by sharing the general ecclesiology of the Christian backgrounds each of them came from, and how they each began to see a need for a richer understanding of what Christ meant to do when he founded His Church. Subscribe on YouTube Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews Entertainment blogs & Forums
Pray that Mother Teresa guides the upcoming synod assembly…
The feast of Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Kolkata, has me thinking of the Synod coming up in a month — and about Katie and Emily. In the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade last year, I talked to women who had had abortions. One was Emily Johnston, who has spent years serving women who are considering abortion. She still grieves the two children she aborted, and works hard to spare others her fate — others like Katie. Katie was scheduled to abort her child the day Emily called. It would have been Katie’s second abortion. Like so many women I heard from, she felt like “I had no choice.” She was alone with her 5-year-old, abandoned by the father, and pregnant again. She called several organizations for help, and got only pro-life talking points and lists of more phone numb...
Major Morocco Earthquake Kills Over 1,000 People; Rescuers Dig for Survivors…
Summary Companies In devastated village, man saved family but neighbours perished With homes destroyed, villagers prepare for night outside Quake damages historic buildings in Marrakech old city WHO says more than 300,000 people affected in quake zone People flee houses in Casablanca, Rabat, elsewhere AMIZMIZ, Morocco, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Rescuers dug through rubble for survivors in collapsed houses in remote mountain villages of Morocco on Saturday, in the wake of the country’s deadliest earthquake for more than six decades, which killed more than 1,000 people and left many homeless. The quake that struck in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains late on Friday night damaged historic buildings in Marrakech – the nearest city to the epicentre – while most of the fatali...
Watch this stunning mini documentary on the Ulma family…
When the Ulma family beatification takes place Sept. 10 in Markowa, Poland, it will be an unprecedented event in many respects. For the first time in church history, a child born during the murder of the mother will be beatified, along with the child’s six siblings and parents, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma. The saintly lives and heroic deaths of the Ulma family [embedded content] [embedded content] The story of the death of the Ulma family, along with the eight Jewish fugitives they sheltered, at the hands of the German occupiers of Poland, is truly compelling. In 1944, after discovering the eight Jewish people the Ulmas were hiding on their farm near Markowa, Poland, Nazi police executed them. Then they executed 44-year-old Józef Ulma and 32-year-old Wiktoria Ulma, who was advanced in he...
A modest proposal for synod punditry: The first accusation of ‘heresy’ or ‘rigidity’ loses…
ROME – In just under a month’s time, the curtain will go up on the first of two keenly anticipated Synods of Bishops on Synodality, often styled as Pope Francis’s own miniature version of the Second Vatican Council. The event is destined to draw extensive media coverage, most of which likely will focus on a narrow canon of issues (women clergy, married priests, transgender rights, same-sex unions, and so on) and will play up tensions and conflicts. In conversations with Vatican officials these days, it’s clear there’s alarm about all that. The concern is that in the media, the synod is going to come off as a sort of “brawl to settle it all,” frustrating hopes for consensus. That’s not a completely irrational fear. I’ve covered 14 synods of bishops since the mid-1990s, and experience tells ...
Pope Francis Meets ‘Rocky’ Actor Sylvester Stallone at the Vatican…
By Hannah Brockhaus Rome Newsroom, Sep 8, 2023 / 09:15 am Pope Francis received U.S. actor and director Sylvester “Sly” Stallone at the Vatican on Friday morning. The “Rocky” actor met the pope in the Apostolic Palace together with his brother, actor and musician Frank Stallone; his wife, Jennifer Flavin; and their three daughters: Sophie, Sistine, and Scarlet. The Vatican released photos of the meeting but did not provide details of the encounter. A video shared by Vatican News showed Pope Francis meeting Stallone and telling him, “We grew up with your films.” Stallone, jokingly making fists, responded: “Ready, we box!” Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews Entertainment blogs & Forums
Did God make the universe so huge in order to give us some idea of what “eternity” is?
It has been a long time since I’ve read St. Gregory of Nyssa, but when I saw this video in an x-tweet, something jumped to mind. If memory serves, Gregory described our experience of the Beatific Vision as a spiral. I had to think about that for a while, but it makes sense. Consider that in the Beatific we will always be striving to see the Triune God and be in union. That implies an eternal rising toward, motion toward God, the ultimate reditus,or rather, proodos. One might describe that motion vector as a ray, since we are moving out of ourselves towards God. However, we are made in God’s image and likeness. Hence, as we behold God we will be learning, coming to understand more about ourselves, considering ourselves in relation to God. One might describ...
