On receiving a new pastor
He may be working for the Lord,
but he’s still the ‘new guy’
By Father Kenneth Van Haverbeke
He was waiting for me. I was sure of it. People waiting for the new pastor have a certain look. Often times it’s a look of: “Who are you replacing our beloved pastor?” Or it can be a look of: “Finally, now maybe this new priest will ….”
Amid the chaos of people moving boxes, introducing themselves, and cleaning out space for more boxes, a little man sat in the corner of the rectory office watching it all. But most of all, he was eyeing me.
Complaining to God is okay, says pope, but let’s not get carried away!
By ELISE HARRIS
Vatican City, Sept. 30, 2014 (CNA) - In his homily on Sept. 30, Pope Francis said complaining to God in times of suffering can be a prayer, but cautioned not to exaggerate our difficulties in front of those undergoing major tragedies.
“Our life is too easy, our complaints are overdramatized,” the pontiff told those in the Vatican’s Saint Martha house during his Sept. 30 daily Mass.
“Faced with the complaints of so many people, of so many brothers and sisters who are in the dark, who have almost lost all memory, almost lost all hope – who are experiencing this exile from themselves, who are exiled, even from themselves, (our complaints are) nothing!”
The Holy Father noted how Job’s prayer in the first reading seems to be a curse after having lost everything, and “his body had become a plague, a disgusting plague.”
“He had lost all patience and he says these things. They are ugly! But he was always accustomed to speak the truth, and this is the truth that he feels at that moment,” the pontiff said, noting how the prophet Jeremiah also cursed the day in which he was born.
“But is this man blaspheming? This is my question: Is this man who is so very alone, blaspheming? Is it blasphemy when Jesus complains – ‘Father, why have You forsaken me?’ This is the mystery.”
First woman appointed to a Vatican congregation
By ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI
Vatican City (CNA) - The first woman ever to be appointed a member of a Vatican congregation explains that “women still have much to give to the Church with their personal charisma.”
Sister Luzia Premoli, superior general of the Combonian Missionary Sisters, was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples on Sept. 13, and spoke recently to CNA.
“The appointment took me by surprise, I did not expect it … but I was also joyful, because the appointment is a concretization of Pope Francis’ wish for more women in high ranking positions in the Catholic Church,” Sister Premoli said.
Her appointment “shows Pope Francis’ commitment” to having more women as decision-makers in the ranks of the Church.
While women served in the Vatican already, as consultants or even under-secretaries and members of pontifical councils, there had never been a woman appointed as a member of a congregation, the higher ranking departments of the Roman curia.
A native of Brazil and a Comboni sister from the age of 23, Sister Premoli spent eight years as a missionary in Mozambique, and another eight in Brazil, where she was appointed provincial.
12 reasons for spending a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament
1. You are greatly needed!
“The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic adoration.” (Pope John Paul II)
2. This is a personal invitation to you from Jesus.
“Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of love.” (Pope John Paul II)
3. Jesus is counting on you because the Eucharist is the center of life.
“Every member of the Church must be vigilant in seeing that the sacrament of love shall be at the center of the life of the people of God so that through all the manifestations of worship due him shall be given back ‘love for love’ and truly become the life of our souls.” (Pope John Paul II)
4. Your hour with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will repair for evils of the world and bring about peace on earth.
“Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Jesus and ready to make reparation for the great evils of the world. Let your adoration never cease.” (Pope John Paul II)
5. Day and night Jesus dwells in the Blessed Sacrament because you are the most important person in the world to him!
“Christ is reserved in our churches as the spiritual center of the heart of the community, the universal Church and all humanity, since within the veil of the species, Christ is contained, the invisible heart of the Church, the Redeemer of the world, the center of all hearts, by him all things are and of whom we exist.” (Pope Paul IV)
6. Jesus wants you to do more than to go to Mass on Sunday.
“Our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic adoration in order that our love may be complete.” (Pope John Paul II)
7. You grow spiritually with each moment you spend with Jesus!
“Our essential commitment in life is to preserve and advance constantly in Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to grow spiritually in the climate of the Holy Eucharist.” (Pope John Paul II)
8. The best time you spend on earth is with Jesus, your Best Friend, in the Blessed Sacrament!
“How great is the value of conversation with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for there is nothing more consoling on earth, nothing more efficacious for advancing along the road of holiness!” (Pope Paul VI)
9. Just as you can’t be exposed to the sun without receiving its rays, neither can you come to Jesus exposed in the Blessed Sacrament without receiving the divine rays of his grace, his love, his peace.
“Christ is truly the Emmanuel, that is, God with us, day and night, he is in our midst. He dwells with us full of grace and truth. He restores morality, nourishes virtue, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak.” (Pope Paul VI)
10. If Jesus were actually visible in church, everyone would run to welcome him, but he remains hidden in the Sacred Host under the appearance of bread, because he is calling us to faith, that we many come to him in humility.
“The Blessed Sacrament is the ‘Living Heart’ of each of our churches and it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore the Blessed Host, which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word, whom they cannot see.” (Pope Paul VI)
11. With transforming mercy, Jesus makes our heart one with his.
“He proposes his own example to those who come to him, that all may learn to be like himself, gentle and humble of heart, and to seek not their own interest but those of God.” (Pope Paul VI)
12. If the pope himself would give you a special invitation to visit him in the Vatican, this honor would be nothing in comparison to the honor and dignity that Jesus himself bestows upon you with the invitation of spending one hour with him in the Blessed Sacrament.
“The divine Eucharist bestows upon the Christian people the incomparable dignity.” (Pope Paul VI)
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
— Mother Teresa
Local Catholics meet with seminarians
for fun, food and faith
‘The Lord is leading us to a life in the full’
Please note: These photos are from the Liberal gathering.
Photos from Dodge City and Great Bend will be added soon!
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
In the cool shade of several tall trees at Blue Bonnet Park in Liberal July 17, seminarians for the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City, Tylan Ricketts and Jacob Schneider, shouted their approval as a participant scored three points in a game of “ladder ball”.
Meanwhile, seminarian Juan Salas braved searing heat while playing soccer in a nearby field with three other participants.
The games were just the first event for the afternoon gathering, which included a prayer service, a steak dinner hosted by the Knights of Columbus, and brief presentations by Bishop John B. Brungardt, Father Wesley Schawe, and the seminarians.
Young men at ordination: 'I can't imagine a better way to live'
By ELISE HARRIS
Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2014 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Transitional deacons ordained this week in St. Peter’s Basilica shared their experience of overwhelming joy in serving God, which stems from a life of sacrifice that’s worth giving everything to live.
“I went to George Washington University in D.C. and met great priests, friends and mentors, and they taught me that priesthood is something joyful, and wonderful and worth giving your life for,” Deacon Conrad Murphy of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. told CNA after his ordination on Oct. 2.
“Of course, it’s full of ups and downs, you have your good days, your bad days, but there’s a joy that’s there throughout it all.”
Dcn. Murphy was one of 43 young men from the Pontifical North American College in Rome to be ordained to the transitional deaconate by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington D.C. yesterday in St. Peter’s Basilica.
'Fill Us With Compassion'
Liturgy Conference
Transfiguration of the Lord
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Podcasts
Including:
Bishop's opening presentation;
Louis Canter's Keynote Address;
Music from the Mass of Saint Cecilia and the Mass of Christ the Savior;
A brief snippet from the presentation of Rodolfo Lopez
PowerPoint presentations
Including:
Coleen Stein -- 'Lector, Not Reader';
(Material for this PowerPoint was taken from
"I Like Being In Parish Ministry by Alice Camille," Twenty-Third Publications.)
Father Frank Coady -- 'Selecting Music';
Father Frank Coady -- 'The Sacrifice of the Assembly';
Father Frank Coady -- 'Liturgical EPA'
Chris Haselhorst's presentation
Including:
New Mass Settings -- An Additional Note
Slideshow presentation:
Liturgy Conference encourages
Full, active, conscious participation at Mass
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
When you open the church door and step inside for Mass, it may just be one small step. But, if you offer “full, conscious, active participation,” it’s one giant leap – not only for you, but for all those who benefit from your witness.
This was the main theme of the “Fill Us With Compassion Liturgy Conference”, Aug. 6 and 7 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City.
It’s only by offering “full, conscious, active participation,” said keynote speaker Louis Canter, that Catholic Christians may benefit fully from the gift of the liturgy, and that others may benefit fully from their witness, both “brothers and sisters of faith, and those who are not. Both enemies and loved ones alike.”
We want Church truth on marriage, young Catholics say
By MARY REZAC
Denver, Colo., Oct 5, 2014 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - It always bothered Grace Raun when she heard her college classmates saying “nobody waits anymore” for marriage, because she knew it wasn’t true.
As a practicing Catholic who had been dating the same person for five years, Grace knew all about waiting. But she said following the rules of the Church regarding premarital sex never felt oppressive.
“I waited. I never felt like I didn’t ‘discover myself’ in college just because I was chaste,” she told CNA. “In fact, I felt like I knew myself better, because I wasn’t just looking for simple pleasures, but I was seeking a purpose to my life and the deeper meaning of who I was.”
Grace and Ben Raun may be a cultural anomaly. They waited to move in together until after marriage, and they married before the age of 25, while it is increasingly the norm among millennials to cohabit before marriage and to tie the knot later in life, if at all.
Knights of Columbus' 'heroic' pro-life work wins Notre Dame prize
South Bend, Ind., Oct 6, 2014 / 11:56 am (CNA/EWTN News) - The Knights of Columbus and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson have been named the recipients of a University of Notre Dame institute’s 2015 Evangelium Vitae medal in recognition of their pro-life efforts.
“Since its inception, the Knights of Columbus has protected and supported the most vulnerable among us,” Carter Snead, director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, said Oct. 5.
“Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus richly deserve to be recognized as heroic contributors to the pro-life cause; they embody the spirit of the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal,” Snead said in an announcement from the ethics center.