Marian Apparitions — The December 2015 edition of National Geographic has a fascinating and respectful article about the many reported appearances of the Virgin Mary worldwide throughout history and how the Catholic Church treats them.
The article describes how these apparitions have involved in prophecies that came true, formed nations and have been connected to unexpected curse for those thought to be suffering without hope.
The article, “How the Virgin Mary Became the World’s Most Powerful Woman” can be found here.
Saint Nicholas (played by Alex Shegda) made at guest appearance at the inaugural Slavic Christmas Luncheon at Holy Myrrh-Bearers Easter Rite Catholic Church.
Holy Myrrh-Bearer’s Inaugural Slavic Christmas luncheon, today, Dec. 6, was a massive hit for a sellout crowd.
On the menu were kielbasa and sauerkraut, pierogies, ham, old-school halushki, and delicious halupki courtesy of Chef Bob Long.
There was oodles of homemade dessert, a myriad of door-prizes, a skit by the young ladies of the parish and a visit by Saint Nicholas himself played by Alex Shegda.
The event was a bargain at $15.
The Mass preceding the meal was celebrated by Bishop John Bura. The pastor is Father John Ciurpita.
The church schedule will be changed started next weekend with the addition of a Saturday Mass in English at 5 p.m. with the moving of the Sunday service in Ukrainian and English to 10 a.m.
Holy Myrrh-Bearers, an Eastern Rite church, opened in April at the church, 900 Fairview Road,Swarthmore (Ridley Township). It is at site of the former Leiper Presbyterian Church which was founded in 1819 and closed in 2012. Presidents Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison and James Buchanan worshiped at Leiper Presbyterian at the invitation of Leiper family members.
The historic Leiper churchyard remains at the church.
Holy Myrrh-Bearers Eastern Catholic Church will hold its Annual Holiday Food Collection is collecting food for the local needy through Dec. 13. Those wishing to donate canned or boxed, non-perishable food items should bring them to the church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore Pa., 19081, on any Sunday between 9 a.m. and noon or use the convenient drop-off box at the entrance to the Educational Center during the week.
Blogger Matt Walsh had this article published on TheBlaze.com, which we are excerpting.
By Matt Walsh
I got this email a few days ago insisting Christians need to be more “inclusive” of open homosexuals. It’s a popular notion these days, so I thought I’d share this with you and respond here publicly:
Matt, you put yourself on a pedestal as this “great Christian” but you do more harm to the religion than anyone else. As a gay man I can say I’m happy to see how finally a lot of Christians and different churches are realizing that Christianity has to be INCLUSIVE of the LGBTQ community and other lifestyles. Not judging of them. Gays and trans people have felt alienated by Christianity and now progressive Christians have finally started to pull the religion into the 21st century and reach out to all of us. Jesus preached tolerance for all people and lifestyles not HATE. The prodigal son was WELCOMED back not told to go away! You are still trying to make divisions and tell some of us Christians we are not Christians just because we live differently. You are a truly sh*tty person and you come off as a bad writer and an uneducated idiot. Just stop talking. You make Jesus mad every time you write your garbage.
-A gay man who loves Jesus
Hi. Thanks for writing. A few points.
First, as I’m constantly reminded, the sins of homosexuality and fornication have existed since Biblical times. Still, it was prohibited in the Old and New Testaments (Genesis 19:1-13, Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9) and by every Christian church for the first 20 centuries of Christianity’s existence. Since you are a self-identified Christian who thinks the moral teachings of the Bible should now be suddenly updated, I have to ask: What changed?
What was revealed in the last few years that proved the prophets, the apostles and all Christian denominations until recently wrong? What new piece of information did humanity obtain? What great revelation occurred? You think a 2,000-year-old faith that professes timeless Truths should “keep up” with the whims of modernity, but why? What do we know in our time that the Church didn’t know — that God Himself didn’t know — up to now? Be very careful in how you answer that question.
Second, I have never referred to myself as a “great Christian” — or a “great” anything for that matter — so I’m not sure why you put “great Christian” in quotes. I consider myself a greatly flawed Christian, even a “sh*tty” one, as you so helpfully and compassionately noted.
See, you need to stop reading with your emotions and read with your brain, man. Your emotions tell you that anyone who advocates virtue is automatically claiming to be virtuous, because it’s easier to dismiss a point based on the perceived motivations behind it rather than consider the point on its own merits. It’s like I’m saying two plus two equals four, and you’re countering that I’m not such a brilliant mathematician. Well, right, but I never said I was a brilliant mathematician. I just said two plus two equals four, because it does, and because even a stupid man can see that.
It’s difficult to have grown-up conversations these days, because people like yourself see every mention of moral truth as either a personal attack or a statement of superiority. This is the real damage you cause in the Faith. It’s not that you’re sinful — we all are, to be sure — it’s that you want to be coddled. You want to shut down professions of Truth that are inconvenient or uncomfortable. You want to modify Christian teachings not because you tried them and found them wrong, but because, to paraphrase Chesterton, you found them difficult and don’t want to try them.
I have many sins, but I will not tell you they are not sins. I come to Christ a sick and broken man looking for healing. You apparently come a sick and broken man looking to be assured you were never sick and broken to begin with. That is the only real difference between us. Or I should say, it’s the only real difference between Christians and “progressive Christians.” Both groups are sinful, both groups are weak, both groups need Christ desperately, but one wants — though they may so often fail — to go Christ’s way, and the other wants Christ to go theirs.
Third, I’m tired of hearing this “inclusive” stuff. Yes of course the Faith is made for people like you. It’s made for all people. It’s not a cult or a club. There’s no entrance exam or membership fee. Christianity is for everyone. If that’s what you mean by “inclusive,” fine, but a better word would be “universal.” In any case, that isn’t what you mean, is it?
When you ask for an “inclusive” Christianity, you ask for a Christianity that, rather than calling you to serve it, bends down and serves you. You’re asking to be “included” in the Faith on your own terms. That’s just not how this works, brother. As Christians, we have no authority to “include” you in that way. You must include yourself.
We go out into the world and proclaim the Gospel. We offer an invitation. We extend a greeting. We fight to win souls. But the souls must come of their own accord and must accept the Truth of Christ willingly and in its fullness. You must enter into the Truth. You must be the one who accepts it. You must be the one who “includes” the Truth in your life. Your lifestyle must change to accommodate the Truth, not the other way around.
By the way, Jesus never uttered the word “lifestyle,” much less did He preach that they all ought to be tolerated. Recently, we’ve started referring to sins as “lifestyles” and pretending that this rhetorical maneuver somehow changes the morality of the issue. It doesn’t. A sin is still a sin, and He instructs us all to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11), which often means dramatically altering our lifestyles.
Indeed, when people came to follow Him in Scripture, He told them to first leave their earthly pleasures behind and then continue along the road (Luke 18:22). He made it very clear that there is in fact a correct lifestyle, a correct way to live, and that way is narrow. Matthew 7:13 tells us the broad and “inclusive” road is the one that leads to damnation. You must choose, then, to walk through the right path, the narrow path, but it will be difficult and demanding, and it willnot and cannot be widened to include you.
We all struggle with sin. But struggle is the keyword. Struggle. Fight back. Plead with God in agony to help you defeat these demons. Go to Christ begging that He help you overcome your temptations and live with chastity and temperance. Don’t demand that your sin be allowed to accompany you into Heaven. It can’t. We can accompany our sins into Hell, or ditch the whole ugly package on the side of the road and come Home.
In “The Great Divorce,” C.S. Lewis said, “If we insist on keeping Hell, we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven, we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
In his homily, today, Sept. 27, in his Mass on Benjamin Franklin Parkway that climaxed this cycle’s World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis said that love is shown by the little things and it is the little things that grow faith.
Francis, whose English is weak, made the speech in Spanish.
“Jesus tells us not to hold back these little miracles. Instead, he wants us to encourage them, to spread them,” Francis said. “He asks us to go through life, our everyday life, encouraging all these little signs of love as signs of his own living and active presence in our world.”
Much of the ceremony was in traditional Latin with Vietnamese and Spanish also making their presence felt along with English.
Among those receiving missionary materials at the end of it was a family from Syria who will be returning next week to Damascus.
21st Street north of Cherry Street at 11:19 a.m.A window sign on 21st Street expressing a common opinion regarding the city’s security measures.
While Francis shined in his visit, Philadelphia did not. The security was overwhelming and ridiculous. It took hours to get through the checkpoints. Well after the ceremony ended, authorities were still making people go through scanners if they needed to return to the event grounds. SEPTA stopped answering its phones on Thursday it seemed, and the directions on its website were far from adequate. Even those who got tickets found themselves at unexpected destinations. The train that left Media made its last stop at University City, not 30th Street Station to the dismay of many.
Why not just keep the regular schedule and run more trains?
Anyway, thank you Pope Francis for your inspiring visit and we will pray for you as you requested.
The next World Meeting of Families will be in Dublin, Ireland in 2018. Hopefully, the organizers will take into account that the ladies need more restrooms.
Here is the full text of his sermon: Today the word of God surprises us with powerful and thought-provoking images. Images which challenge us, but also stir our enthusiasm. In the first reading, Joshua tells Moses that two members of the people are prophesying, speaking God’s word, without a mandate. In the Gospel, John tells Jesus that the disciples had stopped someone from casting out evil spirits in the name of Jesus. Here is the surprise: Moses and Jesus both rebuke those closest to them for being so narrow! Would that all could be prophets of God’s word! Would that everyone could work miracles in the Lord’s name!
Jesus encountered hostility from people who did not accept what he said and did. For them, his openness to the honest and sincere faith of many men and women who were not part of God’s chosen people seemed intolerable. The disciples, for their part, acted in good faith. But the temptation to be scandalized by the freedom of God, who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Mt 5:45), bypassing bureaucracy, officialdom and inner circles, threatens the authenticity of faith. Hence it must be vigorously rejected.
Once we realize this, we can understand why Jesus’ words about causing “scandal” are so harsh. For Jesus, the truly “intolerable” scandal consists in everything that breaks down and destroys our trust in the working of the Spirit!
Our Father will not be outdone in generosity and he continues to scatter seeds. He scatters the seeds of his presence in our world, for “love consists in this, not that we have loved God but that he loved us” first (1 Jn 4:10). That love gives us a profound certainty: we are sought by God; he waits for us. It is this confidence which makes disciples encourage, support and nurture the good things happening all around them. God wants all his children to take part in the feast of the Gospel. Jesus says, “Do not hold back anything that is good, instead help it to grow!” To raise doubts about the working of the Spirit, to give the impression that it cannot take place in those who are not “part of our group”, who are not “like us”, is a dangerous temptation. Not only does it block conversion to the faith; it is a perversion of faith!
Faith opens a “window” to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures. “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded”, says Jesus (cf. Mk 9:41). These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work. Homely gestures. Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work. Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love. That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith.
Jesus tells us not to hold back these little miracles. Instead, he wants us to encourage them, to spread them. He asks us to go through life, our everyday life, encouraging all these little signs of love as signs of his own living and active presence in our world.
So we might ask ourselves: How are we trying to live this way in our homes, in our societies? What kind of world do we want to leave to our children (cf. Laudato Si’, 160)? We cannot answer these questions alone, by ourselves. It is the Spirit who challenges us to respond as part of the great human family. Our common house can no longer tolerate sterile divisions. The urgent challenge of protecting our home includes the effort to bring the entire human family together in the pursuit of a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. May our children find in us models and incentives to communion! May our children find in us men and women capable of joining others in bringing to full flower all the good seeds which the Father has sown!
Pointedly, yet affectionately, Jesus tells us: “If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13). How much wisdom there is in these few words! It is true that, as far as goodness and purity of heart are concerned, we human beings don’t have much to show! But Jesus knows that, where children are concerned, we are capable of boundless generosity. So he reassures us: if only we have faith, the Father will give us his Spirit.
We Christians, the Lord’s disciples, ask the families of the world to help us! How many of us are here at this celebration! This is itself something prophetic, a kind of miracle in today’s world. Would that we could all be prophets! Would that all of us could be open to miracles of love for the sake of all the families of the world, and thus overcome the scandal of a narrow, petty love, closed in on itself, impatient of others!
And how beautiful it would be if everywhere, even beyond our borders, we could appreciate and encourage this prophecy and this miracle! We renew our faith in the word of the Lord which invites faithful families to this openness. It invites all those who want to share the prophecy of the covenant of man and woman, which generates life and reveals God!
Anyone who wants to bring into this world a family which teaches children to be excited by every gesture aimed at overcoming evil – a family which shows that the Spirit is alive and at work – will encounter our gratitude and our appreciation. Whatever the family, people, region, or religion to which they belong!
May God grant to all of us, as the Lord’s disciples, the grace to be worthy of this purity of heart which is not scandalized by the Gospel!
Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church will open its doors to all Sunday afternoon to air live the the Papal Mass on the Parkway.
The Mass starts at 4 p.m. The church doors will open an hour earlier.
The church is at 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081.
After the Mass, the church will have a roast beef buffet. Tickets are $15 and reservations are requested. To make one call Bob Long at 610-459-1935 or email him at rlong98@verizon.net.
The church is changing its Sunday liturgy schedule starting Oct. 4 with an English Liturgy at 9 a.m. and a Ukrainian one at 11 a.m.
Holy Myrrh-Bearers Eastern Catholic Church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, PA, 19081 is having its first kielbasi sale. Fully cooked, ready-to-eat rings will be available 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., today, Sept. 19 at the church. Pre-ordering is not necessary.
The church was consecrated April 18 and held its first Mass the next day.
Update: Office Depot CEO and Roland Smith has apologized. “We sincerely apologize to Ms. Goldstein for her experience and our initial reaction was not at all related to her religious beliefs,” he said. “We invite her to return to Office Depot if she still wishes to print the flier.”
It should be noted that Office Depot assistant general counsel Robert A. Amicone and corporate spokeswoman Karen Denning initially defended the decision.
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life composed a prayer for the elimination of the abortion industry and the conversion of those whose hearts are hardened to support it.
Maria Goldstein thought it would be nice to distribute it at her Catholic parish’s Sunday mass and ordered 500 copies of it at the Office Depot in Schaumburg, Ill.
And the corporate headquarter people are defending the decision so we can’t blame some misguided store manager.
Pope Francis gets criticized by conservatives for the things he has said about American corporations and that is quite unfair as he is dead right.
Our big businesses are more often than not run by selfish people with distinctly anti-Christian mindsets.
The strident advocacy for gay marriage and the ensuing corporate celebration of the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision is mind-boggling from the economic standpoint. It’s not, though, if those that run things think their gravy train will last forever and don’t want to be bound by old-fashioned morality regarding how to treat spouses, employees and others whom they think can’t retaliate.
But gravy trains don’t run forever and consequences are never ultimately escaped.
Ms. Goldstein is preparing legal action against Office Depot. It really doesn’t matter if she is successful in forcing them to do the right thing via this route.
Office Depot will not escape the consequences of its bigotry. The knowledge of what they did will quietly and slowly become known to the tens of millions of Americans who feel the very profitable “non-profit” abortion business is vile and tens of millions of Americans will put Office Depot last on the list when seeking the services it provides. This decision-making change won’t be announced or declared or even be a full-fledged boycott. They will see something they want in an Office Depot ad and they will look for it online or at Staples or at Walmart first.
Yes, shareholders, it will affect the bottom line.
Here is Father Pavone’s pro-life prayer that offended the corporate suits:
Lord, for whom all things are possible, We are confronted once again today With the evil of the abortion industry And the corruption found In the world’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood.
Lord, we pray for all who plan to be parents, And we ask your mercy on those Who teach others to reject parenthood. In the light of your Word, Lord, We affirm today that children are a blessing from you, And that the origin of all parenthood Is likewise in You, the God of life and love. Therefore, Oh God, We stand against the evil that has been exposed In Planned Parenthood And in the entire abortion industry. We stand today for the triumph Of truth over falsehood, Of light over darkness, And of life over death. Bring an end to the killing of children in the womb, And bring an end to the sale of their body parts. Bring conversion to all who do this, And enlightenment to all who advocate it. Close the doors of the death camps in our midst, And open the doors of your mercy and healing! Close the grisly trade in baby body parts, And open the abundant gifts of your salvation and life! Hasten the day when our land Will no longer be stained with innocent blood, And when the bodies of all your children Will be raised from the dead And set free forever.
Archbishop Charles Chaput’s hard-hitting column concerning the monstrosities occurring at Planned Parenthood — which have been given a wink and a nod by our “elites” — deserves greater play.
The column makes a searing rebuttal to Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich who, on Aug. 3, condemned Planned Parenthood but basically said what they were doing was no different than being against open borders and gun control.
Archbishop Chaput’s column, written Aug. 10, can be found at this link or read below.
Here’s a simple exercise in basic reasoning. On a spectrum of bad things to do, theft is bad, assault is worse and murder is worst. There’s a similar texture of ill will connecting all three crimes, but only a very confused conscience would equate thieving and homicide. Both are serious matters. But there is no equivalence. The deliberate killing of innocent life is a uniquely wicked act. No amount of contextualizing or deflecting our attention to other issues can obscure that.
This is precisely why Cardinal John O’Connor, Bishop James McHugh and others pressed so hard for the passage of the U.S. bishops’ 1998 pastoral letter, Living the Gospel of Life. As Cardinal Joseph Bernardin once wisely noted, Catholic social teaching is a seamless garment of respect for human life, from conception to natural death. It makes no sense to champion the cause of unborn children if we ignore their basic needs once they’re born. Thus it’s no surprise that – year in and year out – nearly all Catholic dioceses in the United States, including Philadelphia, devote far more time, personnel and material resources to providing social services to the poor and education to young people than to opposing abortion.
But of course, children need to survive the womb before they can have needs like food, shelter, immigration counseling and good health care. Humanity’s priority right – the one that undergirds all other rights – is the right to life. As the American bishops wrote in 1998:
“Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. Any politics of human life must work to resist the violence of war and the scandal of capital punishment. Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care . . . But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community. If we understand the human person as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ — the living house of God — then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right — the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. Such attacks cannot help but lull the social conscience in ways ultimately destructive of other human rights” (22).
A case is sometimes made that abortion is mainly a cultural and moral issue, and politics is a poor solution to the problem. The curious thing is that some of the same voices that argue against political action on the abortion issue seem quite comfortable urging vigorous political engagement on issues like health care, homelessness and the environment. In practice, politics is the application of moral conviction to public discourse and the process of lawmaking. Law not only constrains and defends; it also teaches and forms. Law not only reflects culture; it shapes and reshapes it. That’s why Christians can’t avoid political engagement. Politics is never the main content of Christian faith. It can never provide perfect solutions. But no Christian can avoid the duty to work for more justice and charity in our life as a nation, a task that inescapably involves politics. Thus the recent Senate vote to defund Planned Parenthood was not only right and timely, but necessary. And the failure of that measure involves a public failure of character by every Catholic senator who voted against it.
Memory is important: Two years ago Kermit Gosnell was stripped of his medical license and convicted of murdering three infants born alive from abortion procedures. He operated a Philadelphia abortion center that more closely resembled a butcher shop than a medical clinic. His clinic environment was uglier than the pleasant restaurants and offices captured on recent Center for Medical Progress (CMP) undercover videos. Those videos show a face of Planned Parenthood – senior staffers chatting blithely about the dismemberment and sale of fetal body parts – that can only be called repugnant. But it’s not surprising: If aborted children are simply lumps of potentially useful (and profitable) tissue, what’s the problem?
Again, memory is important: Thirty years ago “pro-choice” groups tried a strategy of using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to shut down certain forms of prolife witness. The strategy ultimately failed but – maybe it’s God’s sense of irony — the word “racket” very quickly comes to mind in watching Planned Parenthood staff on the CMP videos.
I’ll close with a word of thanks to Ruben Navarette, Jr. Navarette is a veteran “pro-choice” voice, but his August 10 column at the Daily Beast is worth reading and sharing for its honest revulsion at the whole, ugly, system-wide barbarism of Planned Parenthood’s fetal trafficking. And his column’s best lines come in quoting his prolife wife:
“Those are babies that are being killed. Millions of them. And you need to use your voice to protect them. That’s what a man does. He protects children – his own children, and other children. That’s what it means to be a man.”
Marian Apparitions — The December 2015 edition of National Geographic has a fascinating and respectful article about the many reported appearances of the Virgin Mary worldwide throughout history and how the Catholic Church treats them.
