Vanity is like an onion, Pope Francis says
Vatican City, Sep 25, 2014 / 11:11 am (CNA/EWTN News) - In a colorful Thursday homily, Pope Francis highlighted the sin of vanity, saying that Christians must reject it by peeling away one layer at a time.
He cited the Desert Fathers, the saints of early Christian Egypt, who saw that “vanity is a temptation against which we must battle our whole life, because it always comes back to take the truth away from us.”
Drawing from their comparison, Pope Francis explained that vanity is “like an onion,” with layers that must be removed.
“You take it, and begin to peel it – the onion – and you peel away vanity today, a little bit tomorrow, and your whole life you’re peeling away vanity in order to overcome it.”
“And at the end you are pleased: I removed the vanity, I peeled the onion, but the odor remains with you on your hand,” he remarked in his Sept. 25 homily during morning Mass at his Casa Santa Martha residence at the Vatican.
‘Your Servant is Listening’;
Bishop hosts prayer series
"Dear Jesus,” Most Rev. John B. Brungardt prayed on the opening night of a six-week session he is presenting on prayer, “we come before you to grow in our prayer life. To grow in our relationship with you. To listen to you in our hearts. To be aware of your presence.
“Let is grow in our intimacy, in our communication, in our conversation, in our listening with/to you.”
During the sessions thus far, which are presented at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the bishop has taken participants on a journey through different forms of prayer, such as adoration and prayerful meditation in which the individual offers whispered words and phrases -- “Your servant is listening,” “Come to me, Lord Jesus” -- amid otherwise silent reflection.
“I attended the first two Sundays of bishop’s prayer series and it was wonderful,” commented Becky Hessman, vocations coordinator. “Each evening, Bishop John gives practical tools and helpful techniques to help us grow deeper in our prayer life. Bishop has a wonderful way of teaching us about prayer, guiding us in our prayer, and encouraging us in our prayer life. Our homework is to spend 15-30 minutes in prayer each day, quieting our self and being conscious of God’s presence in our life, focusing on who God is and what God does.”
“I’m confident that everyone knew coming into the series that prayer was conversation with God,” explained Steven Polley, Director of Youth Ministry for the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City. “Everybody was pretty well on the same page as far as talking with God, but not as much when it came to listening. “Through the bishop using different prayer techniques, such as chants of music that help people draw more deeply into the Word and presence of God, they are learning to be quiet and let God speak to them through scripture and reflection.”
The workshops have occurred Sundays in October. You can still attend a session. The last two sessions will be held Nov. 6 and 20, from 6-7:30 p.m. Audio podcasts of the sessions are available and free to download at www.dcdiocese.org.
Jesus is 'waiting to be recognized in migrants,' Pope stresses
Vatican City, Sep 23, 2014 / 04:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - All Christians must recognize Jesus Christ in migrants and refugees, and welcome them with “respect and solidarity” while avoiding “suspicion and prejudice,” Pope Francis has said.
“The mission of the Church, herself a pilgrim in the world and the Mother of all, is thus to love Jesus Christ, to adore and love him, particularly in the poorest and most abandoned; among these are certainly migrants and refugees, who are trying to escape difficult living conditions and dangers of every kind,” Pope Francis said in his Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, released Sept. 23.
The Pope noted the “vast movements of migration” and the many people who leave their homelands “with a suitcase full of fears and desires, to undertake a hopeful and dangerous trip in search of more humane living conditions.”
He stressed the conscience’s call to “touch human misery” and put into practice Jesus’ call to care for the stranger, as shown in the Gospel of Matthew: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Nun who won Italy's 'The Voice' records first album
Rome, Italy, Sep 24, 2014 / 12:23 pm (CNA) - Universal has released a promotional video for the first album by Sister Cristina Scuccia, the Ursuline nun who won first place on last season’s The Voice Italy.
The Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire reported on the recent release of the video which features footage of Sister Cristina recording at Universal Music’s studio.
“The work will be done in time to be a Christmas present,” the report states.
Sr. Cristina shot to fame on The Voice with her performance of the song, “No One,” by Alicia Keys. The video of the performance has received over 57 million views on YouTube.
The nun left a mark on the program when she got the entire studio audience to pray an Our Father together during the finale. Shortly afterwards she was declared the winner.
She said she suggested the prayer because “I want Jesus to be here.”
Despite the pressure and media attention during and after the season, Sr. Cristina repeated on numerous occasions that her priority would always be to continue in religious life. She renewed her vows as a member of the Congregation of Ursuline Sisters of the Sacred Family on July 29, and is scheduled to make her perpetual vows in 2018.
Married couples attend anniversary Mass ... in their honor
There is always a certain look of pride on the faces of those who come to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City to celebrate their marriage at the diocesan-wide anniversary Mass and reception.
On Oct. 16, nearly 80 couples from across the diocese attended the celebration, thrown by the diocese in their honor, examples of faithful adherence to the sacrament of marriage, proof that with love, effort, and faith in God, marriages can survive and thrive.
The longest married couple was once again Bruno and Marceline Hoffman, married 70 years. Marceline gave her simple secret to a long marriage: “Lots of Love.”
“Don’t forget to say ‘I love you,’” added Bruno, who just turned 98. Soon after the couple were married 70 years ago, Bruno headed off to fight in World War II, and wouldn’t return for more than two years.
Following the Mass was a dinner reception in which each couple received a certificate presented by Bishop John B. Brungardt. Following is his homily from the Mass, presented in its entirety:
Theological Virtues
St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians (1:1-5) contains the theological virtues: “Unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love, and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul also describes these three virtues in a popular wedding passage from first Corinthians 13:13: “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” These virtues, ways to please God, all directly link our actions to our loving Lord:
Faith is belief in God and His ways. Faith is a gift from the Lord, and it can also be developed by our prayer and sacramental life. Hope is trusting in God. Hope adds the idea of turning our lives over to God’s plan, knowing that He will help us. Love is not a physical love like “I love pizza!” Love is a sacrificial, unconditional, giving love. Love like Jesus: to lay down my life for another. St. Paul reminds us that with these virtues, we can follow Jesus’ path.
St. Francis Xavier, Seward, celebrates quasquicentennial
Pastor, Father Rene Guesnier, O.S.B.,
celebrates golden jubilee
By TIM WENZL
Southwest Kansas Register
SEWARD – The Catholic community here on Sept. 25 celebrated two milestones: the 125th anniversary of St. Francis Xavier Parish and the golden jubilee of Father Rene Guesnier, O.S.B.
The parish was founded in 1886 when the Catholics in northern Stafford County organized as a Catholic community. Father Rene Guesnier, a native son, of the Seward parish was ordained to the priesthood on Sept. 21, 1961. He celebrated his first Mass in St. Francis Xavier Church on Sept. 24, 1961.
Bishop John B. Brungardt, making his first visit to the parish, celebrated the Mass. He was joined by Benedictine Abbot Gregory Polan of Conception Abbey.
Concelebrants were: Father Pascal Klein, La Crosse; Father Chuck Mazouch, Ellinwood; Father Ultan Murphy, Olmitz; Father Dermot Tighe, former pastor now retired in Great Bend; Father Dwight Birket, McPherson; and Father Angel Dy, Diocese of Sorsogon.
Military chaplains: God in the trenches of Ukraine
By SOVIA KOCHMAR
Kyiv, Ukraine, Sep 25, 2014 / 04:05 am (CNA/EWTN News) - Since April, Ukraine’s eastern provinces have experienced continual military confrontation between its government, and pro-Russian separatists and Russian forces, and more than 3,200 have been killed in the conflict.
Accompanying the soldiers at the front are priests – both Catholic and Orthodox – as well as Protestant chaplains.
Vasyl Derkach, 23, recently returned to Lviv, in Ukraine's west, to recover after his rotation in Ukraine's military in the eastern conflict zone.
“Can you imagine, I have slept for seven days on clean sheets? I did not sleep on sheets for five months,” Vasyl told CNA in a recent interview. “Have you ever really thanked God for sleeping in a warm bed?”
“In my team, no one believed in God. I asked my friend with whom I always stayed on the post: 'Do you believe in God?' He told me, 'No, I have faith in myself.' But when he was wounded, the first thing which he said to me in the hospital, was 'Vasyl, I prayed! Can you believe me, I prayed?!'”
“At war there are no atheists. When they start to shoot, everyone begins to make the sign of the cross,” Vasyl says.
Catholic actor McDonald gets 
high profile on TV’s ‘Harry’s Law’
Nov. 13, 2011
By MARK PATTISON
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- You’re forgiven if you think you’ve seen Catholic actor Christopher McDonald in a court of law before.
A dozen years ago, he played smarmy lawyer Rex Weller on the CBS legal drama “Family Law.” This year, McDonald has bellied up to the bar -- the barrister’s bar -- to play I-can’t-get-no-respect lawyer Tommy Jefferson on the NBC series “Harry’s Law.” Even though it was a midseason debut, “Harry’s Law” already qualifies as the top-rated scripted show on ratings-starved NBC.
NBC has ordered six new scripts that would give the drama a 22-episode run this season, typical in the TV world. The final step would be an order to film those scripts, and “I think it’s imminent,” McDonald told Catholic News Service.
Falling into the trap of
Predatory lending
By Doug Weller
The Register (Diocese of Salina)
SALINA — Predatory lending has emerged as a concern of the Catholic Church in Kansas.
In one of four election-year videos issued this week by the bishops in Kansas, Salina Bishop Edward Weisenburger asks Catholics to urge their state lawmakers to consider stricter regulations to protect vulnerable citizens.
The video, which is available at kscathconf.org, also includes presentations on “Marriage,” “Defending Life,” and “Religious Freedom,” by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Bishop John Brungardt, and Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita, respectively.
Catholic Charities of Northern Kansas has been working to help victims of predatory lending since 2007. It launched a new program last year, the Kansas Loan Pool Project, that offers a structured loan to qualified participants to help them escape extreme high-interest borrowing known as “payday” or “paycheck advance” loans.
Those lenders have moved aggressively into Salina, Hays, Manhattan, Junction City and Concordia. Online lenders can reach anyone with access to the Internet.
Catholic social teaching doesn’t prohibit the charging of reasonable interest on loans. However, it does consider exorbitant interest — usury — as wrong.
In the video, Bishop Weisenburger says usury is one of the practices “that are plainly harmful to the poor and simply contrary to the teachings of Christ.”
The entire family will 
have a good time at
‘The Mighty Macs’
By JOSEPH McALEER
Catholic News Service
Nov. 13, 2011
At right are the real Mighty Macs, on which the movie is based.
NEW YORK (CNS) -- “The Mighty Macs” (Freestyle) is the fact-based story of a women’s basketball team from a Catholic college who, through the grit and determination of their rookie coach, got a shot at the national title.
This old-fashioned, family-friendly film is “Sister Act” without the singing, “Rocky” with basketballs, and “The Trouble with Angels” with Ellen Bursytn in the Rosalind Russell role of the mother superior.