a feast day for the holy prophet Elijah

An angel in the flesh and the cornerstone of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, Glorious Elijah sent grace from on high to Elisha, to dispel diseases and to cleanse lepers. Therefore, he pours forth healings on those who honor him.

Prophet Elijah of great renown, seer of the mighty mighty works of God, by your command you held back the rain! Pray for us to the only Lover of mankind!

Elijah- man of contradictions- a saint before the time of Jesus, an 'angel in the flesh' 

Pray for us! 

Do it for God! a link to Brother Isaac's blog

"One sentence!

Once sentence was all it took to remind me that anything I am doing for myself and not for God is something I am doing wrong.  It is something that needs to be fixed.  The fix will bring peace and joy.

The simple answer solved an immediate problem but has relevance for every single one of my actions.  It doesn’t matter what I am doing.  It can be singing, cleaning, speaking, teaching, welcoming guests, etc.

The answer to so many of my problems is simple.

“Do it for God!” .....read the entire post at Brother Isaac's blog....

do Bi-ritual Priests strengthen or weaken priesthood?

"If I can unite in myself the thought and the devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russians with the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come a visible and manifest unity of all Christians." --- Thomas Merton 

"Many will remember Pope St. John Paul II’s words from “Ut Unum Sint, “the Church must breathe with her two lungs”–its Eastern one and its Western one. In writing this, our late Holy Father was referring to the need to unify the East and West as one Church to combat the dangers of secularism and grow in cultural, intellectual, spiritual, and geopolitical strength. To be clear, the pope was not specifically exhorting individual Catholics to become bi-ritual. His encyclical calling for a balanced resuscitation and cooperation between the main traditions of the Church arose from a predominance of the Latin tradition while the Eastern tradition became more obscure. But, in the effort to achieve this balance, it can fall to priests and teachers to open the minds and hearts of individual Catholics to the liturgies they are not familiar with. With this knowledge, the Church herself might begin to breathe more fully and grow in health and strength. It is to this end that a bi-ritual experience in the context of education can help further this holy objective by making the world of liturgy full and fulfilling to those for whom it has grown stale or, what is worse, stultifying." --- by GREGORY DIPIPPO .... continue at New Liturgical Movement

Is Pope Francis open to married men becoming Roman-rite Catholic priests?

There have been rumblings throughout the blogosphere about the latest musings of the Holy Father. Should married men be permitted- as a norm- to be ordained Roman-rite priests?  Dear reader, you should (rightly) say, "Hey, priest's wife! You are Romanian Byzantine Catholic! It is none of your business what the Roman-rite does! keep out of it!" 

don't worry- this is an 'old country' Eastern Catholic seminarian marrying- men wear their best clothing to their marriage, and his clerics would be his best clothing 

Very well. I will keep out of it- after I share some thoughts...these old chestnuts....

Read: Throwing Priests' Wives Under the Bus (about a former Anglican priest turned Catholic priest who stated that he would be a more dedicated priest if he were celibate) 

my words: 

Everyone should accept and develop their lives depending upon their vocation and not advocate against their state in life. It is ungrateful to be otherwise. His public thoughts of being a more devoted priest if he weren't with family responsibilities is unfair. While he can advocate for celibacy in general, theological terms, the specifics of his situation should be positive only. I know these are strong words, but he is ungrateful in that he is a minuscule exception to the celibacy requirement in the Roman-rite. I understand that some married priests want to stay 'under the radar,' so don't mention your marriage at all. We all have misgivings and frustrations with our state in life. 

Have you ever met a mother who is vocal about her preference for the opposite sex that her baby turned out to be? The baby is all dressed in blue, and the mom sighs that she's disappointed that she doesn't get to buy all the cute pink ruffly clothes. I must confess that I find that attitude really disturbing. It's one thing to say 'a girl would be fun' before the sex of the baby is known, but when that sweet baby is in your arms, he needs your total acceptance and love. 

What if your husband was having second thoughts about being married to you? What if he fantasized about being married to the girl he dated before you met him? What if he published a Facebook status update like: "I would be a more devoted husband if I didn't have to deal with Sarah's lupus. I could have devoted more to my career if Maria had married me." Devastating, no? 

Read: Sad Days (about Roman rite commenters who want Eastern-types to shut it) 

my words:

WHY OH WHY do people think that by accepting the East's 2,000 year tradition of married men priests and their dignity and worthiness leads to....married men being ordained de facto in the West, altar girls, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, women 'priests,' clown masses, blessings with bubbles and sage, embracing divorce and remarriage, birth control, abortion, meat buffets on Fridays, abandoning Holy Days of Obligation, global warming, etc and etc...We just want our sui juris church to be respected. We love the Holy Father and the Catholic Church. Let me be a broken record for a bit; the Church is bigger than my microscopic rite and the Roman rite- no matter the majority the Roman rite has.

Read: Sex & the Married Priesthood: Ceasing Marital Relations within Marriage a "Praiseworthy Thing"? (a former Episcopalian priest announces that he will no longer have relations with his wife after being ordained a Catholic priest)

my words: 

I say that it is impossible for a loving married couple (a couple not in an extremely rare Josephite marriage from the beginning) to be perfectly continent because marital relations is much more than intercourse. It is an emotional intimacy with another person that a celibate person does not experience. Marital relations is to receive a cup of coffee lovingly from your wife, as you can see from the video of Deacon John. If he entered a monastery, a housekeeper or a fellow monk giving him coffee would be a completely different thing. Marital relations is to be frustrated together over the latest mistake a child has made. Marital relations is to buy the stinky cheese that he likes so much. Marital relations is to clip coupons and soak beans cheerfully. To reduce marital relations to simply sexual intercourse (the lack of intercourse being the perfect continence required supposedly by canon 277) is to reduce us to animals who rut without thinking.

and here is the last blog post I could find about the subject...The Challenge of Celibacy: Let's NOT talk about Sex  (it's about the single life and selfishness) 

my words:

We all know amazing celibate priests who are always thinking of the other person. He might golf on Monday morning as a hobby, but his cell phone is open to calls and he doesn't allow a gate keeper secretary to be a barrier to contact with his parishioners. Celibacy and continence are challenges, but Roman-rite priests know what they are getting into and, I suspect, focus on protecting themselves from sin in these serious matters. Selfishness is a much smaller sin, but it tends to creep in and make itself at home. A selfish person who is also a giver- like I was- work, work, working for God but then ignoring that call that they know is a hospital call. A selfish person insists on his hamburger super-rare (just pass it over a lit candle) even when the waitress says the health board won't let her sell it rare. A selfish person needs, even while complaining of burn-out, to choose all the music selections and flower arrangements so that things will be perfect (for him/her).

agree? disagree? any other thoughts? leave a comment!