The St Michael Society would like to ask for your prayers of thanksgiving for God’s gift of Pope Benedict XVI and his leadership of our Catholic Church. Today he celebrates his 83rd birthday and on Monday he celebrates the fifth anniversary of his election as pope.
Check out a very interesting story about his birth falling on the eve of Easter as he delivered it firsthand here .
Happy and Holy Birthday, Pope Benedict!
Remember the many miracles Jesus performed in his 33 years on earth as revealed in the Bible? And when He promised the gift of miracles would persist in the Church (Mark 16:17 )?
According to the humble priest and author of a new book – whom several of the St. Michael Society editors have had the priviledge to know – miracles were not just made manifest in the days of old; Jesus is performing them through believers in this very day in age. Fr. Stefan Starzynski shares:
I personally believe that Jesus never intended his miracles to lessen or cease, but we slowly began to accept the idea that miracles are rare in the Church; they are usually associated with very holy men and women or holy places like Lourdes, France,” Father Stefan shared. ” With this belief, came a reduction in the number of miracles. Many people conclude that because I am not a saint, Jesus would not work a miracle through me. I believe that Jesus is once again moving his hand to work great signs and wonders among his people to awaken a skeptical age.
Read about Fr. Stefan’s new book Miracles: Healing for a Broken World below. We’d highly recommend this moving and inspirational book as a gift or personal read. Visit Amazon.com or call 1-800-348-2440 to purchase a copy.
MIRACLE STORIES, VISIONS DOCUMENTED IN NEW BOOK INSPIRE RENEWAL OF FAITH AND HOPE FOR MANY
NEW BOOK SHOWS HOW GOD AND THE BLESSED MOTHER WORK THROUGH A HUMBLE PRIEST
WASHINGTON, DC – “The existential miracles that have happened through Father Stefan have become a new flame of hope set to rekindle the mind of the contemporary Christian and a world in desperate need of hope.” So writes Reverend Father Boniface Ewah in his brilliant introduction to a new book by Father Stefan Starzynski titled: Miracles: Healing for a Broken World (Published by Our Sunday Visitor).
The book not only documents how God is working through Father Stefan, who worked closely for months with Blessed Mother Theresa, it also demonstrates the amazing power of prayer and faith that is often lacking in today’s modern society. Indeed Father Stefan reveals how prayer and faith are unequivocally linked to the various miracles Father Stefan outlines in the book supported by full and beautiful, if not heart wrenching, testimonials from the various individuals on the receiving end of these miracles.
Through prayer, faith and his increasingly popular Healing Mass, Father Stefan recounts numerous stories ranging from the healing of the sick, including babies, to miraculous events that occurred on his ordination day to the death of a newborn baby that through prayers at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe inspired the Paul Stefan Homes for Expectant Mothers . Father also addresses visions he has received that have lead to miraculous events all of which are supported by the witnesses themselves in subsequent chapters at the end of the book, titled “Testimonials.”
Writing in his book, Father Stefan uses Church history and tradition to help readers understand the concept of miracles in every day life. “Why are miracles important? We live in an unbelieving time. It is readily accepted that God worked miracles in the early Church to convert Pagan Rome and to establish his Church.”
“I personally believe that Jesus never intended his miracles to lessen or cease, but we slowly began to accept the idea that miracles are rare in the Church; they are usually associated with very holy men and women or holy places like Lourdes, France. With this belief, came a reduction in the number of miracles. Many people conclude that because I am not a saint, Jesus would not work a miracle through me. I believe that Jesus is once again moving his hand to work great signs and wonders among his people to awaken a skeptical age.” In reading Miracles: Healing for a Broken World, few will disagree.
To purchase the book, visit Our Sunday Visitor website at www.osv.com or call 1-800-348-2440.
Six talks detailing the action and meaning of the Mass Offered by Rev. Paul Scalia.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation, I am struck by two things: the significance of our Lord taking the same human form as each of us began our lives, and how the Virgin Mary said “yes!” to a life of pain and suffering, knowing her Son would be King but that His crown would be very different from other rulers.
The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and said,
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
The angel did not say “Mary, God is sending a great military leader and you are to be his earthly mother.” Or “would you care to sit on a golden throne with the Son of God, eat fine food and drink the finest drink for the rest of your life?” No, the angel Gabriel told Mary that God Almighty wanted her to give birth to a tiny baby – His baby, their baby – and that God was sending the Holy Spirit to knit that divine child in her womb! So it’s not a coincidence that this feast day falls nine months to the day before Jesus’ birth on December 25th.
It’s also not a coincidence that Jesus first took the form of a human being as a tiny embryo – vulnerable, microscopic and completely dependent upon the nourishment of fellow human being, for whom he would eventually suffer and die to save.
What would have happened if Mary said “thanks, but no thanks?” Or if fear, poverty, inconvenience or any number of other circumstances won instead of her free will and courage? Her fiat is a model to us all – especially mothers and fathers who feel unprepared to bring an unborn child to term – because “through Him all things are possible.”
For those parents, let us ask our Virgin Mother’s intercession in praying,
Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee;
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners now
And at the hour of our death.
Amen.
As we near the end of the healthcare debate, the Most Rev. Paul Loverde, Bishop of the Arlington Diocese of Northern Virginia, has declared tomorrow Monday, March 15th a day of prayer and fasting for the intention of “protecting the life, dignity, health and conscience rights of every human person in any legislation that Congress considers.”
The St Michael Society applauds this initiative and, with your participation, can help make this a National Day of Fasting and Prayer.
Bishop Paul Loverde
Catholic teaching tells us that our support for the dignity of life includes access to affordable health care. This support, however, cannot come at the expense of the respect for life at all stages, from natural conception to natural death …
… Through our fasting and prayers, we ask the Lord to lead the hearts and minds of our nation’s leaders as they make crucial decisions concerning the protection of life.
Read his full letter here, and please pass this onto fellow Catholics to join us in solidarity for these crucial intentions.
You can also brush up on the power of “true” fasting here.
The USCCB recently announced a series of workshops to prepare priests and diocesan leaders for implementation of the revised Roman Missal.
The seminars are sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship and the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions as part of educational efforts for introducing the latest version of the Roman Missal, which incorporates the most significant changes in the Liturgy since 1974.
You don’t need to wait for the seminars. There is a great site that lists all the “changes,” which I would call improvements, here. You can start reviewing the changes now.
What changes do you like? Which do you find confusing? Do you wish some had been left untouched? What do you think they missed?
We’ll put some of the questions to a priest, and post his answers here.
My favorite – The consecration:
TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT; WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.
There’s a new calendar by the Archdiocese of Washington that is causing a stir among some critics for its focus on Catholics cutting their carbon footprint this Lent.
The calendar, created by the Diocese’s Environmental Outreach Committee, provides 40 carbon-fasting suggestions in order to be “wise stewards of God’s Creation” in preparation for Lent and the Easter Season. Some of the measures include:
The full calendar is viewable here, and more detail on the calendar and the promotion of this “new twist on Lent” by the California bishops is at the California Catholic Daily.
While these are good suggestions to be stewards of God’s creation, how appropriate is it to focus an entire 40 days on cutting your carbon footprint? Is that more important than the grave issues like abortion, adultery, euthanasia and others that could inform Lenten sacrifices such as volunteering at a Pregnancy Resource Center or taking time to help an elderly neighbor? Some, like the Sweetness & Light blog, have questioned the calendar’s focus saying
Is nothing sacred? This isn’t your father’s Catholicism.
Others, like this Catholic who must remain anonymous, shared a keen insight saying
We have clear guidelines on how to follow the liberals on saving the planet but we cannot have clear guidelines when it pertains to their votes on killing babies?
What do you think?
Recently two of our SMS editors got the chance to go to Mass and dinner with the Austrian, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the editor of the current Catholic Catechism and the author of a New York Times op-ed about intelligent design that was published in July 2005, one that the Holy Father said, as he told us, was “divinely providential.”
The Cardinal studied with then-Cardinal Ratzinger and remains close to the Holy Father. He is extremely brilliant yet has a gentle way about him and much to our delight, brings back memories of John Paul II.
Cardinal Schönborn spoke about nominalism and what it has done to modern science. He also spoke about gay rights and abortion and the importance of Catholic education institutions.
We were blessed to sit with the Cardinal, and pro-life champion Congressman Chris Smith, for dinner and speak with him about many topics, including the impact of the Internet on Catholics. He was very interested to learn about how Catholics are connecting online, which of course, as editors of SMS, we were happy to tell him about! We also discussed abortion (see below for the video for more on that topic).
The Cardinal urged us to defend natural law and the Catholic Church through the use of reason rather than sentiments. He said that nature helps us to understand the will of God and that “reality indicates something about God’s plan.”
The Cardinal on nominalism:
The Cardinal talks about abortion:
The Cardinal on having a dialogue of religions on grounds of reason:
