Category Archives: catholicism

Adopt-a-Seminarian: A Bitter Sweet Story

Before our move two months ago, I prayed that we could live near our parish so that we could have our Pastor or priests interact with our family and basically be like family.  Todd and I have a strong devotion to pray for the priesthood, after all we created 40 Days for Priests, and pray that we are blessed with at least one if not many vocations!  When I grow up, I want to be like this mom who had ten children and they all became a priest or a nun and one even a Bishop!  Can you imagine that?  We pray this prayer for the vocation of my children all of the time.

Here they are with Pope John XXIII:

Ask and you shall receive:

We have had the wonderful opportunity to help a Seminarian friend of ours names Allan learn English.  He is from Brazil and needs to learn the language to be able to attend Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary this Fall.  We have been working with him for almost four weeks now.  Every weekend, Todd picks him up on Saturday mornings and Allan stays at our home all day, eats lunch and dinner with us and then he goes back to the Rectory.  Same thing happens on Sundays and on a couple occasions, we got him to come over during the week.  It has been a total honor and privilege to help this holy young man learn English and for such an amazing cause!  {By the way he blogs over at Vida Sacerdotal if you want to pay him a visit, it is in Portuguese though}
Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary
BUT he is such a handful!  He’s funny, knowledgeable in the Faith, and he loves children…to us he is like having a living saint at our home.  My children simply adore him!  I think God works in mysterious ways…and His plans are so perfect.  Allan’s presence in our home has been a total blessing.  I think we have been the ones to thank him for the opportunity to help him learn English and for teaching us so much more!

This week Allan leaves to Nebraska and we aren’t sure when it will be the next time we get to see him.  I *know* we are all going to cry (bitter sweet tears) when we last see him this coming Thursday morning after Ascension Thursday Mass.  You see Allan has become part of our family. 

I’d like so share some pictures of our time together with him:
my kids adore him!

this was Allan’s idea…just so you can get a gist of his personality :p

he really enjoyed our walk in the park/woods

St. Francis look alike :p

yes that is a seminarian in a cassock riding a skateboard down my street!

Allan sitting on our front porch
What do you think?  Can we find a better way to foster vocations with our children?  I don’t think so I like this new “program” of temporarily adopting a seminarian.  🙂
Allan, you will be in our prayers and missed dearly but know that you have five littles ones praying for you constantly!  We love you!

Friends, can I beg you for prayers for Allan?  Thank you!

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The “Real” War against Girls and Women

By: German Munoz, Ph.D.
E-mail: gmunoz1313@aol.com
www.drgermanmunoz.com

The War against the Catholic Church
American President Barack Hussein Obama has attacked the religious freedom clause of the Constitution of the United States and is trying to make the Catholic Church submissive to the State.

Why? The Church rejects the government mandate to include sterilization services, and the birth control pill, including those which induce abortion, in the insurance policies for some Catholic institutions. She considers these products as sinful.

These matters were discussed in the article “Religious Freedom, the Pill, and the Womb: Sacred Space, Sacred Place”, which is found at www.drgermanmunoz.com.

Now, groups of “Obamamites” and others are accusing the Church with unleashing a war against women. The reason might be that they need to change the topic away from the attack of the President against religious freedom.

Ironically, this accusation against the Church is coming from groups which have been supportive of the murder of 25 million unborn baby girls in the United States through the crime of abortion, as well as the millions of baby girls victims of “the one-child” policy in China. These aborted unborn babies were denied the chance of womanhood.

Meanwhile, the Church has opposed both policies. Which side is in favor of women?

The War against Girls and Women
There is a war against girls and women, but this action is not coming from the Catholic Church, but from the materialist elite who are promoting the following:

  • Depriving girls of loving parents by the easy practice of no-fault divorce, which breaks up the family unit and wrecks the emotional stability of children so that adults can pursue their individual agendas.
  • Approving and even encouraging dating at a very early age which leads to loveless and uncommitted sex before marriage and which most often leave the girls feeling used and dirty.
  • Encouraging promiscuous behavior which gradually teaches girls not to love but to use the males as they have been used by them.
  • Exposing young girls to the sexual abuse by their unmarried mothers’ partners.
  • Creating idols or models in the movies and in the record industry who behave in sexually deprived ways, which are violent against women.
  • Censoring in our schools social science research which shows that the best sex is between married and faithful men and women.
  • Providing young girls with contraceptive pills which increase promiscuity, psychological and physical abuse by boys and men, unexpected pregnancies outside marriage, and certain venereal diseases.
  • Presenting girls and women with the option of IUDs (intrauterine devices) which can damage the walls of the uterus, create infections, and prevent natural conception.

There is more,

  • Encouraging abortions which torture and destroy the life of a human being, as well as creating in the mother such problems as depression, breast cancer, and death.
  • Advertising products by associating them to sensual females, thus treating women as pure commercial objects.
  • Inserting sex education classes in our elementary and secondary schools where a great number of teachers will promote all types of promiscuous and unloving sexual behavior.
  • Teaching girls to hate males.
  • Promoting pornography among boys and men (and also among females), thus creating men who cannot understand real women, who abuse them verbally, physically and sexually, and are unable to maintain a loving relationship.
  • Denying in schools an awareness of God, who alone can satisfy the ultimate needs of everyone, and who can support girls and women in difficult times.

Results of the War
The so-called “progressives” think that a society where girls and women are taught that they should be free to think, to say, and to do whatever they want should lead to great happiness for them. And yet, this is not what we find upon reading the research on the topic. Instead, what we find in our modern culture is shocking:

  • Less confidence and self-esteem among girls.
  • Less self-respect and strength in dealing with the aggressiveness of boys and men.
  • More willingness to use boys and men as the females react to the lust and narcissism of the males, thus creating a cycle of selfishness which leads them often to unhappy isolation.
  • More female teenage suicide.
  • More use of drugs.
  • Less educational achievements.
  • More fatherless children.
  • More children dependent on the state.
  • Rise of the authoritarian state which becomes “Father”
  • More divorces.
  • More poverty as children have either one parent or none.
  • More promiscuity.

The abuse of women was illustrated when a former President of the United States inserted a cigar into the vagina of a student intern working in the White House. There was no sense of self-respect or of love, neither on the part of the 18-year-old nor of the President. They were there to lustfully use each other. Ironically, so-called “women’s rights” groups were not very active in criticizing the President.

This behavior is in contrast to the life of Saint Maria Goretti, a twelve-year-old who was knifed seventeen times and was murdered for refusing the sexual assault of a teenager. For this reason, the Catholic Church calls her the Patroness Saint of Purity. She believed that her body was a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion
The Catholic Church, no matter the errors of Her children, is a protector of women. She knows that women have been given the gift of cooperating with God and with their husbands in the creation of human life.

Therefore, a major role of the Church is to protect the dignity and purity of women, for without her it is impossible to have and maintain families and raise our future priests. For this reason, She teaches:

  • The innocence of children regarding sexual matters.
  • The modesty in the clothing of our teenagers.
  • The delay of the dating process until maturity.
  • The sexual abstinence until marriage.
  • The use of natural family planning, which works together with the genius of the body and saves women from toxic products, such as the “pill”.
  • The commitment of marriage “’til death do us apart”.
  • The rejection of abortion which kills a human being, dehumanizes the mother, and could have ties to breast cancer.

On the other hand, the “Obamamites” stress the right of the woman to do whatever she wants in the area of human sexuality. Some are able to lead decent lives. However, a significant number end up isolated, frustrated and unhappy, for they have not learned to love others, to treat their bodies as a gift from God, to “be fruitful and multiply”, and to protect their offspring by teaching them self-respect and a loving morality.

In conclusion, while Catholics are not perfect for the Church has sinners, She also has saints, and is full of love for Her females. Her teachings are true and healthy for them.

***Reprinted with permission


Not that I feel that I need to add to this wonderful writing of Dr. Munoz, but just yesterday I posted this on my personal Facebook page:  Documentary on how pornographic culture affects upbringing of children and teenagers.  We should also pray to preserve the innocent and pray for those kids who have been exposed to this at such a young age.

     
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New Year – New {Blog} Look

We have decided to change the “look” of the blog to go with the Liturgical Season!  So we are dressed in purple and rose for Advent as our family prepares for the birth of our Savior.

Blessings to you all,
Mama Erika (and DH who did all the technical work)

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150 Reasons Why I’m Catholic (and you should be too)

One Hundred Fifty Reasons I’m Catholic
And You Should Be Too!
by Dave Armstrong

1. Best One-Sentence Summary: I am convinced that the Catholic Church conforms much more closely to all of the biblical data, offers the only coherent view of the history of Christianity (i.e., Christian, apostolic Tradition), and possesses the most profound and sublime Christian morality, spirituality, social ethic, and philosophy.

2. Alternate: I am a Catholic because I sincerely believe, by virtue of much cumulative evidence, that Catholicism is true, and that the Catholic Church is the visible Church divinely-established by our Lord Jesus, against which the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail (Mt 16:18), thereby possessing an authority to which I feel bound in Christian duty to submit.

3. 2nd Alternate: I left Protestantism because it was seriously deficient in its interpretation of the Bible (e.g., “faith alone” and many other “Catholic” doctrines – see evidences below), inconsistently selective in its espousal of various Catholic Traditions (e.g., the Canon of the Bible), inadequate in its ecclesiology, lacking a sensible view of Christian history (e.g., “Scripture alone”), compromised morally (e.g., contraception, divorce), and unbiblically schismatic, anarchical, and relativistic. I don’t therefore believe that Protestantism is all bad (not by a long shot), but these are some of the major deficiencies I eventually saw as fatal to the “theory” of Protestantism, over against Catholicism. All Catholics must regard baptized, Nicene, Chalcedonian Protestants as Christians.

4. Catholicism isn’t formally divided and sectarian (Jn 17:20-23Rom 16:171 Cor 1:10-13).

5. Catholic unity makes Christianity and Jesus more believable to the world (Jn 17:23).

6. Catholicism, because of its unified, complete, fully supernatural Christian vision, mitigates against secularization and humanism.

7. Catholicism avoids an unbiblical individualism which undermines Christian community (e.g., 1 Cor 12:25-26).

8. Catholicism avoids theological relativism, by means of dogmatic certainty and the centrality of the papacy.

9. Catholicism avoids ecclesiological anarchism – one cannot merely jump to another denomination when some disciplinary measure or censure is called for.

10. Catholicism formally (although, sadly, not always in practice) prevents the theological relativism which leads to the uncertainties within the Protestant system among laypeople.

11. Catholicism rejects the “State Church,” which has led to governments dominating Christianity rather than vice-versa.

12. Protestant State Churches greatly influenced the rise of nationalism, which mitigated against universal equality and Christian universalism (i.e., Catholicism).

13. Unified Catholic Christendom (before the 16th century) had not been plagued by the tragic religious wars which in turn led to the “Enlightenment,” in which men rejected the hypocrisy of inter-Christian warfare and decided to become indifferent to religion rather than letting it guide their lives.

14. Catholicism retains the elements of mystery, supernatural, and the sacred in Christianity, thus opposing itself to secularization, where the sphere of the religious in life becomes greatly limited.

15. Protestant individualism led to the privatization of Christianity, whereby it is little respected in societal and political life, leaving the “public square” barren of Christian influence.

16. The secular false dichotomy of “church vs. world” has led committed orthodox Christians, by and large, to withdraw from politics, leaving a void filled by pagans, cynics, unscrupulous, and power-hungry. Catholicism offers a framework in which to approach the state and civic responsibility.

17. Protestantism leans too much on mere traditions of men (every denomination stems from one Founder’s vision. As soon as two or more of these contradict each other, error is necessarily present).

18. Protestant churches (esp. evangelicals), are far too often guilty of putting their pastors on too high of a pedestal. In effect, every pastor becomes a “pope,” to varying degrees (some are “super-popes”). Because of this, evangelical congregations often experience a severe crisis and/or split up when a pastor leaves, thus proving that their philosophy is overly man-centered, rather than God-centered.

19. Protestantism, due to lack of real authority and dogmatic structure, is tragically prone to accommodation to the spirit of the age, and moral faddism.

20. Catholicism retains apostolic succession, necessary to know what is true Christian apostolic Tradition. It was the criterion of Christian truth used by the early Christians.



To read the 130 other reasons, please visit Our Catholic Faith.

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Noah’s Ark and the Mind of the Homeschooling Mama

So what does Noah’s Ark have anything to do with the mind of a Catholic Homeschooling Mama? Lots! Listen to this….

This is just too cool not to share with you! This isn’t new information because it was completed in 2007, but to me it is! :p So here’s the story:

A man in named Johan Huibers of Schagen in the Netherlands, a Dutch builder, has built a replica of the biblical ark as a true-life demonstration to his faith in the truth of the Bible names Johan’s Ark. Schagen, the town he lives in, is about 40 miles north of Amsterdam.

The incredible thing is that when you see the following pictures, you will be amazed by it’s immense size but this replica is ONLY half the size of the real thing! Johan created only a half size replica of what Noah made. I received this information via e-mail from a close friend and thought it was so neat that I wanted to share with you.

Also, I realized how much my mind has changed as far as receiving information and what I do with it…..I automatically wanted to save this information so that when I teach this story to my kids, we can take a virtual field trip (flying to the Netherlands with four kids, two adults, and on one income, isn’t economically possible right now, lol), learn about the different metric systems around the world, also could be an architecture lesson, a science lesson on sink and float, recreating our own arks with popsicle sticks, and on and on and on! Ten months ago, I would have looked at this story read it and maybe forwarded to two or three other friends who might have thought it was interesting…today, I can stretch it to cover so many subjects for both my older child and my preschoolers! For more on Noah’s Ark, click here to go to the online Catholic encyclopedia.

Enjoy the pictures:



Blessings,
Erika

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NEWS: Father John Corapi Due to Make an Announcement THIS weekend!

Just got an email from Santa Cruz Media (his publishing company):

“We understand many of you would like an update–any update–on the status of Fr. John Corapi. Please be assured that as soon as Fr. Corapi updates us with the status of these events, we will utilize all avenues of communications to update you, his fans, and followers.

Recently, Fr. Corapi held an internal office meeting and informed us that he is “not extinguished!” He expressed his continued desire to help deliver a message of hope to those who seek it and he informed us that by this weekend he will have a “very important announcement” that he plans on delivering on YouTube, Facebook, and through email.

We ask that you continue to lift him up in prayer and are encouraged for what lies ahead.”

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait and pray that it is happy news…I miss him on EWTN!

On a happy note, this year Father Corapi is celebrating his 20th anniversary since his ordination STOP THE PRESS!! This man has only, ONLY, been a priest for 20 years???? Have you ever heard him? Okay, if you don’t believe in God using us and his priests to speak through them, you have to hear this man! He explains so much in such a short time and it is so clear…crystal clear, only the Lord can send messages like that! Here’s a glimpse of it:

From their website: “Now, commemorating his baptism and 20th anniversary of ordination, we are reducing prices on the entire inventory for the remainder of the month of June. 50% OFF ENTIRE INVENTORY, to take advantage of this offer, you must use the coupon “June2011” in the checkout process!”  Also, visit him on Facebook!

Can’t wait to see him again, how about you?
Blessings,

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The Sad News of a Catholic Church Closing: St. Robert Bellarmine {Miami, Florida}

About two years ago, when my cell phone rang and one of my kids brought it running to me (screen face up so I could see the caller ID), I was excited to see it was a close friend from Florida. I dried my hands as quickly as I could (don’t you just hate how quickly the calls go to voicemail) and grabbed the phone pressing the green button. “Hi, my friend how are you?,” I asked him but on the other end what I heard was sadness, “I have bad news, the Archbishop is closing a bunch of churches and St. Robert Bellarmine is on the list!,” he said as my heart sank. St. Robert’s???

How could it be? It was the church where my beloved and I married, where I learned the beauty of the Latin Mass (when to stand, how to pray it, etc.) and it was where two of my five children were Baptised. How could it be???

But really, I was not surprised because St. Robert Bellarmine is a small church in a poor section of town. Most of its parishioners were from other parts of Miami (us being one of them) but the rest of our Church friends lived in the neighborhood. It was a poor parish…but in my heart I thought…it’s one of the parishes that needed to stay open, for the very same reason…it was in a poor section of town!  Most of the people walked to Mass, now where were they going to go?  My heart broke.  So I went to the Archdiocese of Miami’s website and sure enough, in black and white, was the name of the church!

I quickly wanted to see pictures, to remember how beautiful it is (these are the ones I used for my anniversary (July 23rd) photobook):

Pages 5, 10, 11, 14, and 15, give you a feel for what it looked like inside and also it’s beautiful little courtyard and Parish hall….it’s a small church, but beautiful nonetheless!

Isn’t it so sad that so many churches are closing down?  It’s a sad thing to see…I just wish that I could win the lottery to give them all the money they need to pay off loans and keep their doors open, it’s so important!!!  So people, lets not complain anymore when we see that basket come around during collection, let’s give and tithe like the best of them.  Did you know that the Bible asks us to tithe 10%?  It’s possible, I’ve seen people do it….I think this is something my family and many others really need to pray about and reconsider to keep more church doors open!
Blessings,

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Are your kids HB?

As our second year of home educating comes to an end and I reflect on these past two years in our homeschool journey, I am reminded of times when we laughed, cried, learned, prayed, and loved.  Early in our journey I recall one specific time, in Confessional….it went something like this:

“Father, I am new to homeschooling and I am worried.  I don’t think I’m doing a good job at it.”  He asked, “Why do you think this?”  “I don’t know Father, there are so many things I would love to do with the kids but the days seem so short and time flies.  Plus all the housework, some days I just think I may not be doing a good job teaching them.”  –silence–

He then asked, “Mom, do your kids know who Jesus is? the Blessed Mother? Do they know their prayers? Do they talk to you about God and involve him in their every day lives?” “Yes Father,” I answered, “then that is all you need to worry about, the rest will happen, they will learn to add and read but what is important is that they know God!”
I’ll never forget that day! Keep the focus, Heaven bound not Harvard!  😉

Blessings,
Mama Erika

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Papa Ben – We Love YOU!

Papa Ben {Pope Benedict XVI} is awesome!  He is well read, well educated, and truly a Theologian!  I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of guy I want heading our Church!  In just one week, he has taken the world “by storm” by stating, God-forbid, truths about our Catholic faith:  Watch Michael Voris’s report on this from the Vatican.  {just five minutes and worth it}.

I’m following the lead of my Pastor, Shepherd, Christ here on Earth, the Pope…and being “insensitive” by being really Catholic!  God bless you Papa Ben!  Thank you for sounding and being VERY Catholic!  We Love YOU!

If you love Papa Ben, like our family does, give him a nice shout out on this post or on your blogs!

Blessings,

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