Community Chat

[gloriajean]

Should you find your energy lapsing, a sure remedy is to give someone a
helping hand
or a word of support and make their day. Lord, You are patient with me and
loving. May
I be the same with the people in my life.


Scripture for the day:

"A lawyer, asked Jesus a question to test him. 'Teacher, which
commandment in the law is the greatest?' He said to him, 'You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a
second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." ~Matthew 22:35-40

Meditation for the day:

God has a plan for the world we live in. God's design for the world is
a universal fellowship of men and women, guided by God. The plan for
our lives is also in the mind of God. In times of quiet meditation we
can seek God's guidance, for the revealing of God's plan for our day.
Then we can live this day according to God's guidance. Many of us are
not making of our lives what God means them to be, and so we are
unhappy. We can miss the God's plan for our lives.

Prayer for the day:

I pray that I may try to follow God's design for today. I pray that I
may live my life today consistent with God's plan.


Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires (For any Catholics who read this, you may find this interesting)
Author: ks. Mieczyslaw Piotrowski TChr
The weakening of faith in the real presence of the Risen Christ in the
Eucharist is one of the most significant aspects of the current spiritual
crisis. Jesus wants to strengthen our faith in His Eucharistic presence.
That is why from time to time in the history of the Catholic Church He gives
us signs–Eucharistic miracles that clearly underscore the fact that He, the
Risen Lord Himself in the mystery of His Divinity and glorified humanity, is
truly present in the Eucharist. The most recent Eucharistic miracle
recognized by the Church authorities occurred in 1996 in the capital of
Argentina–Buenos Aires.

A consecrated Host becomes flesh and blood

At seven o’clock in the evening on August 18, 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was
saying Holy Mass at a Catholic church in the commercial center of Buenos
Aires. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a woman came up to
tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back
of the church. On going to the spot indicated, Fr. Alejandro saw the defiled
Host. Since he was unable to consume it, he placed it in a container of
water and put it away in the tabernacle of the chapel of the Blessed
Sacrament.
On Monday, August 26, upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement
that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal Jorge
Bergoglio, who gave instructions that the Host be professionally
photographed. The photos were taken on September 6. They clearly show that
the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown
significantly in size. For several years the Host remained in the
tabernacle, the whole affair being kept a strict secret. Since the Host
suffered no visible decomposition, Cardinal Bergoglio decided to have it
scientifically analyzed.
On October 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr.
Castanon took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for
analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he purposely did not
inform the team of scientists of its provenance. One of these scientists was
Dr. Frederic Zugiba, the well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist.
He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood
containing human DNA. Zugiba testified that, “the analyzed material is a
fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close
to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart.
It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to
all parts of the body. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and
contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart
was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the
heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They
require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates
that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these
white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that
the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten
severely about the chest.”
Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero,
witnessed these tests. Knowing where sample had come from, they were
dumbfounded by Dr. Zugiba’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the scientist how
long the white blood cells would have remained alive if they had come from a
piece of human tissue, which had been kept in water. They would have ceased
to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr. Zugiba replied. The journalist then
told the doctor that the source of the sample had first been kept in
ordinary water for a month and then for another three years in a container
of distilled water; only then had the sample been taken for analysis. Dr.
Zugiba’s was at a loss to account for this fact. There was no way of
explaining it scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform
Dr. Zugiba that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white,
unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human flesh.
Amazed by this information, Dr. Zugiba replied, “How and why a consecrated
Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will
remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a mystery totally beyond her
competence.”
Only faith in the extraordinary action of a God provides the reasonable
answer—faith in a God, who wants to make us aware that He is truly present
in the mystery of the Eucharist.
The Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires is an extraordinary sign attested to
by science. Through it Jesus desires to arouse in us a lively faith in His
real presence in the Eucharist. He reminds us that His presence is real, and
not symbolic. Only with the eyes of faith do we see Him under appearance of
the consecrated bread and wine. We do not see Him with our bodily eyes,
since He is present in His glorified humanity. In the Eucharist Jesus sees
and loves us and desires to save us.
In collaboration with Ron Tesoriero, Mike Willesee, one of Australia’s
best-known journalists (he converted to Catholicism after working on the
documents of another Eucharistic miracle) wrote a book entitled Reason to
Believe. In it they present documented facts of Eucharistic miracles and
other signs calling people to faith in Christ who abides and teaches in the
Catholic Church. They have also made a documentary film on the
Eucharist—based largely on the scientific discoveries associated with the
miraculous Host in Buenos Aires. Their aim was to give a clear presentation
of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject of the Eucharist. They
screened the film in numerous Australian cities. The showing at Adelaide
drew a crowd of two thousand viewers. During the commentary and question
period that followed a visibly moved man stood up announcing that he was
blind. Having learned that this was an exceptional film, he had very much
wanted to see it. Just before the screening, he prayed fervently to Jesus
for the grace to see the film. At once his sight was restored to him, but
only for the thirty-minute duration of the film. Upon its conclusion, he
again lost the ability to see. He confirmed this by describing in minute
detail certain scenes of the film. It was an incredible event that moved
those present to the core of their being.
Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to conversion. If Jesus causes
the Host to become visible flesh and blood, a muscle that is responsible for
the contraction of a human heart—a heart that suffers like that of someone
who has been beaten severely about the chest, if He does such things, it is
in order to arouse and quicken our faith in His real presence in the
Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Mass is a re-presentation
(i.e. a making present) of the entire drama of our salvation: Christ’s
passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus says to his disciples, “Unless you
people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (Jn 4: 48). There is no
need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them
to us, then it behooves us to accept them with meekness and seek to
understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many
people have discovered faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, who
reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, who abides in the sacraments and
teaches us through Holy Scripture and the Magisterium of the Catholic
Church.

A mystery that surpasses our understanding
The Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the
appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most
difficult truths revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely
visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He
really does give us His glorified body and blood as spiritual food and
drink.
Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His passion, death, and
resurrection. During the Last Supper, He “took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ‘Take and eat; this is my
body.’ Then he took a cup, gave thanks,and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink
from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be
shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Mat 26: 26-28). When
Jesus took and gave the apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is my
body….this is my blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine
which He gave them to eat and drink really was His body and blood, and not
some sort of symbol.
Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the
Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life
within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and
I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is
true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in
him” (Jn 6: 53-56). Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6: 52). Many of Jesus’ disciples were
also scandalized. “This saying is hard,” they objected, “who can accept it?”
Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of
His listeners, Jesus responded not by retracting His words, but by raising
the stakes: “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man
ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while
the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and
life”” (Jn 6: 62-63). Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery by
anticipating the glorification of His humanity through His death,
resurrection, and ascension. He will give His flesh and blood as food and
drink after the Ascension; that is, when His flesh and blood have been
glorified and divinized, for, unglorified, “flesh” is indeed “of no avail.”
Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He
turned to them, saying, “‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’
Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who
would betray him” (Jn 6: 65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of
Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of
this fact, Jesus said, “‘Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you
a devil?’ He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he
who would betray him, one of the Twelve” (Jn 6: 70-71).
The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus
invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist
(Jn 6: 62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on
a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in him dwells the
whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Col 2: 9). In His glorified humanity,
the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the
Eucharist. He shares with us His resurrected life and love that we may even
here on earth experience the reality of heaven and partake of the life of
the Holy Trinity.
Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence
and limitations. In his encyclical devoted this sacrament, John Paul II
writes: “‘The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the
whole substance of the bead into the substance of the body of Christ our
Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his
blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this
change transubstantiation.’ Truly the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a
mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith,
as is often brought out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding
this divine sacrament: ‘Do not see—Saint Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts—in the
bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said
that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your
senses suggest otherwise’” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 15).
The Eucharist is Christ’s supreme gift and miracle, for in it He gives us
Himself and engages us in His work of salvation. He enables us to
participate in His victory over death, sin, and Satan, share in the divine
nature, and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity. In the Eucharist we
receive “the medicine of immortality, the antidote to death” (EE, 18). For
this reason, Mother Church holds that every deliberate and freely willed
absence from Holy Mass on Sunday is an irretrievable spiritual loss, a sign
of loss of faith, and hence a serious sin. Let us also remember that if “a
Christian’s conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance
through the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full
participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice” (EE, 37).

Fr. M. Piotrowski SChr

Mother Teresa Said...

"To join the congregation we need few things.
We need health of mind and body.
We need the ability to learn.
We need plenty of common sense
and a cheerful disposition.
I think common sense and cheerfulness
are very necessary for a wok like this."

KNOWN ONLY TO HIM
By Sally I. Kennedy
Jun 29, 2009

My soul finds rest in God alone...my hope comes from him. He alone is
my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken…he
is my refuge. Psalm 62:1-7

We were visiting from out of town, and arrived a little before the
service started at a church downtown. We slid into seats on the side
up near the altar. It felt so peaceful, and we were thanful for a
place to worship, hear the Word of God and be with other believers.

Near us, I saw an older man come in and sit by himself. He was dresse;
his body looked thin and fragile, yet strong. I couldn't see his face
until passing him later. It was then I noticed the sadness
in his eyes. His whole demeanor actually seemed sort of limp with,
perhaps grieving.

My heart went out to him; I breathed a little prayer. I don't know him
and probably never will. But I know someone who does.God alone knows
our deepest thoughts. He alone knows our heart of hearts. In reality,
we are known only to Him.

In 1952, Carl Stuart Hamblen wrote the words and music to the gospel
song:
Known only to him are the great hidden secrets
I'll fear not the darkness when my flame shall dim
I know not what the future holds
But I know who holds the future
It's a secret known only to Him

In this world of fear and doubt
On my knees I ask the question
Why a lonely, heavy cross I must bear
Then he tells me in my prayer
It's because I am trustworthy
He gives me strength far more than my share

Known only to him are the great hidden secrets
I'll fear not the darkness when my flame shall dim
I know not what the future holds
But I know who holds the future
It's a secret known only to Him

How wonderful this same God is loving, kind, merciful, and comforting
towards us.

Wings of Prayer

Just close your eyes and open your heart
and feel your worries and cares depart,
Just yield yourself to the Father above
and let Him hold you secure in His love-

For life on earth grows more involved
with endless problems that can't be solved.
But God only asks us to do our best,
Than He will "take over" and finish the rest-

So when you are tired, discouraged and blue,
there's always one door that is open to you,
and that is the door to "The House of Prayer"
and you'll find God waiting to meet you there-

And "The House of Prayer" is no farther away
than the quiet spot where you kneel and pray.
For the heart is a temple when God is there
as we place ourselves in His loving care-

And He hears every prayer and answers each one
when we pray in His name "Thy will be done"-
And the burdens that seemed too heavy to bear
are lifted away on "The Wings of Prayer."

- Helen Steiner Rice

Even When . . .

Even when you have failed before, there is still every possibility of
success.


Even when one door is closed, another door will open.


Even when the situation appears to be hopeless, there is indeed hope.


Even when your options and your resources seem to be exhausted, there is
still something more you can do. Why is this so? Because the past does not
equal the future. Because you are endlessly adaptable, resourceful and
determined to go where you know you must go, to do what you know you must
do. Because in this moment, you can move beyond anything at all that may
have previously held you back.


Even when defeat appears certain, victory is well within reach.


Even when the night is at its darkest, dawn is already on the way.


Never give up, never give in, even when everything before has been a
disappointment or a disaster. Because everything ahead can be just as you
decide to make it.


-- Ralph Marston

Heavenly Father,

We Thank You for the constant gifts that you place before us.
May we be ever thankful for the gift of friendship,
For blessing us with people around us that we can call true friends.

For those that challenge us, and make us think beyond the square.
For those that listen to us, and share our concerns.
For those that laugh with us, and make our hearts burst with joy.
For those that teach us to be better people.
For these people we are ever grateful.

For we see the God in them... a true reflection of You.

Amen.