Holy Abandonment

Trusting in the Divine Fatherhood of God. To quote Fr. Mark:

The Father cares for you, not merely in a general way by controlling the course of events from afar, but in a profoundly personal way by His presence to you in all the circumstances of daily life.

At no moment is the Father distant from you or unavailable to you. At every moment His providence and His mercy are there for you. Give every care of yours into my Father's hands and go your way in peace of heart, trusting that He will attend to it and cause all things to work together for your ultimate good.

Giving Up Facebook for Lent

Cheryl Dickow explains her choice of Lenten penance. Everyone uses Facebook in different ways and degrees. I have cut back on Facebook dramatically this Lent because I found that it was taking up too much of my thoughts and my time which need to be given to other things. Facebook is a new medium in human experience; people are still learning how to interact on it in a measured way. In the past year or so there are several persons of long-standing acquaintance with whom I am no longer in communication because of misunderstandings on Facebook. There have also been some family feuds and disagreements which would never have happened except for Facebook. True, Facebook has introduced me to some wonderful new friends and deepened relationships that already existed. It has been more of a blessing than a curse. However, because of some of the sadness and hard feelings that have come out of Facebook, I am cutting back on it this sacred season in order to reflect.

Queen Saint Mathilda

Patroness of those who are falsely accused.

Akita

Catholic News Agency relates how the epicenter of the great Japanese earthquake is near the shrine of Our Lady of Akita where a weeping statue of the Virgin has long foretold disaster. To quote:

In 1973, the Virgin Mary was said to have predicted a number of future events – including natural disasters even more serious than Friday's earthquake and tsunami – during three appearances to a Japanese religious sister, Sr. Agnes Sasagawa.

The purported appearances of the Virgin Mary in Japan were reviewed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1988. During his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prior to his election as Pope Benedict XVI, he let stand the local bishop’s judgment that the apparitions and the messages were acceptable for the faithful.

The messages warned of chaos within the Church, and disasters which could afflict the world.
“If men do not repent and better themselves, God the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity,” Mary reportedly told Sr. Agnes. “If will be a punishment greater than the (biblical) flood, such as never seen before.”

“Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful,” she said. “The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church, in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops.”

“Churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

“Each day, recite the prayers of the Rosary,” she told Sr. Agnes. “With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests.”

Two years after the last message, the statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel where the apparitions had occurred began to emit tears and drops of blood. The occurrence continued for more than six years.

Reports from Akita following Friday's earthquake indicate that the city received significantly less damage than other parts of northern Japan, despite its proximity to the epicenter. However, residents did report power outages, burst pipes, and fires.

Bishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Niigata, whose territory includes the Akita apparition site, is also the president of Caritas Japan, which will be working to assist victims of the earthquake and tsunami. The relief organization is accepting contributions to its emergency fund at www.caritas.org.

More HERE.

A Call to Renewal

Here is an excerpt from the homily that Auxiliary Bishop Donal McKeown of Down and Connor delivered on Ash Wednesday at St. Mary's Church in Belfast:

One word which marks part of our liturgy today is 'repentance'. For Christians, that means a heart-felt recognition of areas in our lives where we have not loved the Lord our God with our whole heart and soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. Inevitably, we have all got much to repent of in terms of how we could be disciples of the Jesus who asks us to walk with Him as channels of His healing and peace in a hurting world. And the Sacrament of Reconciliation is readily available to assist us with God's grace. As an institution, Church leadership has much to repent of regarding how we were church in the past. There are many people who have walked away from belief in God because they felt terribly hurt by those who claimed to speak of God and in God's name.

But repentance is not just a righteous condemnation of the past. When we look back in anger, there is also a danger. There is a real risk of criticizing the past for its inability to recognize some blatantly obvious truths then - but being much less able to see the faults in the present. The world is not divided into bad past, good present, or bad them and good us. Any simplistic division of time into bad Catholic past and good liberal present is childish illusion and delusion. Leaders in church, politics, business and community have much to repent of in how we are today as well. We do that so we can learn, not just to blame others but to be wiser ourselves. Sin and failings are not located somewhere else, in the foreign country that was the past. Human weakness is an active ingredient in current circumstances as well. Repentance is a call to look at me and at today, not just at somebody else and at their past. Lent asks us to reflect on what the next generation might condemn in how we contented to be today.

Wrath

From Laudem Gloriae:

St. Francis de Sales tells us: “It is a matter of great importance to make our conversation agreeable. To do so it is necessary to appear humble, patient, respectful, cordial, yielding in all lawful things to all. Above all, we must avoid contradicting the opinion of anyone, unless there is an evident necessity for it. In that case, it should be done with all possible mildness, and with the greatest tact, without in the least outraging the feelings of the other party. In this way we shall avoid contests which produce only bitterness and which ordinarily spring rather from attachment to our own opinion than from love of truth. Believe me, there are no dispositions more inimical to human society than those which are given to contradiction, just as there is no person more commonly loved than he who contradicts no one.”

Help for Earthquake and Tsunami Victims

Catholic Relief Services is responding to the emergency. Let us pray for all the victims. May God have mercy. Our Lady of Akita, pray for us!