A tribute to our Priests

Here is a post from A tribute to our Priests on my Uncle, a Catholic Priest in Australia.

He too has a blog full of great homilies, check it out HERE.

The picture is of him at my parent's farm feeding some birds.

Seminarians

From Coo-ees' Priory

"I do know!"

A father was approached by his small son who told him proudly, "I know what the Bible means!"

His father smiled and replied, "What do you mean, you 'know' what the Bible means?"

The son replied, "I do know!"

"Okay," said his father, "What does the Bible mean?"

"That's easy, Daddy" the young boy replied excitedly:

"It stands for Basic Information Before Leaving Earth."

Free Will

Human Soul - Spiritual Soul: gives us a dignity with human rights for we are made in the image of God.
That is, our soul possesses two spiritual powers;
1) Intellect to know the truth.
2) And the will to choose what is good.

FREE WILL is the ability to make a choice.

Any choice or decision implies a variety of options of which one wins out.
Daily we make hundreds of decisions, actual choices, that form the fabric of our life against the backdrop of eternity.

* Only humans have spiritual souls and thus are able to make decisions.

* Every choice requires knowledge beforehand.
The better the knowledge the better the choice!
Hence the need for prophets who teach us God's truths.

* Nobody has a 'right' to choose evil, while there is an obligation to choose good.

One thing that DOESN'T belong to God, is 'sin'.
Choose right from wrong!

3 Conditions

Three conditions for Holy Communion:


1) Be a baptized Catholic who believes.

2) Be free of mortal/serious sin.

3) Be fasting for 1 hour beforehand.



"I am the bread of life...and my flesh is real" says Jesus.

Betting

A Scotsman was at McCafe one Friday evening and sat down next to an Irishman.

When the news came on it featured the story of a suicidal man on top of a tall building who was about to jump.

The Scot, being a betting man, said to the other, "I'll bet you $50 that that man on the roof actually jumps."

The Irishman said: "Fine, I bet you he won't."

Some minutes later, the man does jump and dies.

The Scot collects his money and adds: "Let me buy you a Big Mac, since you lost the bet - and to be honest, I had seen the early version of the news and saw him jump then!"

The Irishman replied: "Well, now that you mention it, I saw that too...but I didn't think he would do it a second time!"

Mass = Sacrifice of Christ

The great Sacrament of the Eucharist was:

- foretold in the past

- promised by Christ

- fulfilled in our parishes.




Sacrifice requires 3 elements:

1. Priest = Jesus (ordained Priests)
2. Altar = Calvary (my Lavington parish)
3. Victim = Christ (host)

In the Mass the Liturgy of the Eucharist consists of Three distinct phases:

1) Offertory: we offer ourselves with Christ to God the Father.
2) Consecration: we relive the death of Christ on Calvary now sacramentally re-presented on the altar
3) Communion: we draw spiritual life for the soul from the glorious Body of Christ - a foretaste of and preparation for our own resurrection.

Something to think about

“I prefer to be in disagreement with men than, agreeing with them, to be in disagreement with God.”

St Anslem

From Into the Deep

Love

Our human nature indicates to us that love is nothing more than an emotion.

We make decisions based on our emotions, and some even get married because we feel "in love."

The Bible teaches us that true love is not an emotion that can come or go, but a decision.

We are not just to love those who love us, but we should even love those who hate us, the same way that Christ loves the unlovable (Luke 6:35)

For more go HERE.

Trusting God

When you "cast your bread upon the waters," you never know how it will be returned to you.

God is so big He can cover the whole world with his Love
And so small He can curl up inside your heart...

When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, trust Him fully and let go.

Only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He'll catch you when you fall, or...
He'll teach you how to fly!