My Catholic Life

"First let a little love find entrance into their hearts, and the rest will follow." St. Philip Neri Saturday was the feast day of St. Philip Neri. Someone sent a meme on Facebook with the above quote. Of course, me being me, one of the things I thought of was the song "Put a Little Love in Your Heart", sung by Jackie DeShannon in 1969. Jackie DeShannon also sang the song "What the World Need Now (is Love Sweet Love) in 1965. There may be some who feel that the whole problem in the Church today is the sappy idea of love carried over from the 60's and 70's and reflected in such songs as these two. To a certain extent they may be right. The love of God is not about sappy sentimentality. It is not all about the feels. Even so, I'm going to go with it. It can't hurt to put a little love, sweet love in our hearts. St. Philip Neri seemed to think that it was a good place to start. We have come to know and to believe in the love God...

I just posted another episode of Showing Up Catholic on the Vericast Network. Showing Up Catholic #21 God With Us January 10th 2017 The Christmas season ended with the feast of Epiphany. We box up our decorations and put away the celebration until next year. The thing that we were celebrating, however, the Incarnation, remains with us. Emmanuel, God with us, is not confined to the yearly memorial of an event from long ago. In this episode we talk about the Catholic Church as the unique extension of the Incarnation in every age. Check out the on demand programs at vericast.net. Click on the link to watch past episodes of Showing Up Catholic

I have started a My Catholic Life youtube channel. Here is the first video. I talk about how having a Catholic life has been good to me. Go on over to youtube and subscribe to my channel. My Catholic Life on youtube

The newest episode of "Showing Up Catholic" has been posted to the Vericast Network. In this episode of "Showing Up Catholic", Vickie talks about the importance of the Advent Season. She also talks about the simile of salt and relates it to how we might conduct ourselves during Advent. She describes how seasoning our season may be one way of winning the culture war to put Christ back into Christmas. You can see the episode here

Episode 5 of Showing Up Catholic is now available on the Vericast Network The Sword and Shield Vickie presents a perspective on intercessory prayer. Petitioning for assistance is only one aspect of this type of prayer. Seeking a deeper relationship with God brings a greater dimension and more confidence to intercessory prayer. Using scripture Vickie talks about battling in prayer, the armor of God and using our sword and shield for the benefit of others. Watch it here

Episode 4 of "Showing Up Catholic" is up on the Vericast Network. Good, Bad, Ugly This episode of "Showing Up Catholic" takes a look at what might be good, bad or ugly in Catholic and social media on the internet. Vickie asks the question of when we might be crossing a line in expressing our opinions, through articles, blogs and discussions, into what potentially could be causing damage in the Church and to others. Where do we draw the line between what is productive and what might be participating in what St. Francis De Sales termed "spiritual suicide"? Vickie examines some ways of discerning where that line might be. Watch it here

Another episode of "Showing Up Catholic" has been posted on Vericast.net. Chasing Prophecy When we Catholics chase prophecy we sometimes find ourselves heading off of the road. In this episode Vickie talks about using discernment when it comes to private revelation. When we come across messages "directly from heaven" can we trust them? Vickie talks about some red flags that we can look for in dealing with private revelations that have not been (or not YET been) approved by the Church. Grounded in our faith we can test the spirit of messages and prophecies to determine if they will bring us to truth or to error. http://www.vericast.net/blog/2015/10/28/chasing-prophecy-showing-up-catholice-ep-3/ If you want to catch past episodes of "Showing Up Catholic" check out the profile page with a link to all of the episodes. http://www.vericast.net/shows/showing-up-catholic/

 The second episode of my show for the Vericast Network, "Showing Up Catholic", is available. To "show up Catholic" requires an understanding of what that word "Catholic" means. In this episode Vickie takes a look at the word Catholic and gives a perspective on Catholicity and how our Catholic character relates to evangelization and our relationship with each other as the Mystical Body of Christ. You can watch it here.

I will be presenting a new show for the Vericast Network (Vericast.net) called "Showing Up Catholic". This first episode is called "Built on the Rock". In this first episode of Showing Up Catholic, Vickie gives a perspective on the scripture of Mt 16:13 - 20, in which Peter answers the question "Who do you say I am?". She gives some interesting background regarding where this event occurred as well as discussing the Rock on which Jesus builds his Church and what it means to say the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

A blog post I wrote for Vericast.net In the Christmas Present    Tim, Wilson and Father Paul Nicholson discussed some current attitudes about Christmas and the need for us to reclaim it. We attempt to reclaim the day, the season and even the greetings of Christmas from the secular that endeavors to wrap it in relativism, social cohesion, consumerism, commercialism and the narcissism of self.  Yet our attempts may prove themselves powerless if we are not, at the same time, responding to and actively reflecting the essence of Christmas ourselves Read entire article here

Prayer warriors are called warriors for a reason. We understand that for, although we are in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses. (2Cor 10:3-4) There is nothing passive about those who war in prayer but they do understand the dynamic of our total dependence on God. Read the rest of the article on Catholic365 here

Another post in my Turning the Tide series for Vericast. When I chose the title Turning the Tide for my series this was the scripture that I was thinking about. The term itself does not appear in the scripture, but it’s what happened. When Moses held up the staff the tide of battle turned in favor of the Israelites. When Moses lowered his hands the tide of battle turned in favor of the enemy. Often it feels like we are on the battlefield battling our little hearts out and that the enemy is having the better of the fight. It seems that our government is bit by bit hemming us in so that we can no longer live, proclaim and share our faith. It seems like evil can boldly show its face and no one blinks an eye. Within the Church it seems that we are at odds with each other. It seems that many are at odds with the clergy and the magisterium. Both faithful and clergy are, at times, at odds with Church teaching.  It does not seem that we have the better of the fight. The fight seems to h...

Guess who I am using for my inspiration today? The Guess Who, that’s who. And if you know the Guess Who then you know from my title that I’ll be working with two songs from the playlist. Anybody here see the noise, see the fear and commotion? I think we missed it Anybody here see the love, see the hate being motioned?   Anybody here see the noise, see the fear and commotion that is surrounding the Synod on the Family? If you are following the media and the bloggers it is hard to miss it.   There is noise, there is commotion but most of all there is fear. The extreme progressive side is afraid that the Church is going to tell us to put a muzzle on our sex lives. The extreme radical traditionalists are afraid that the Church won’t tell us to put a muzzle on our sex lives, thus leading us into apostasy.   Those in the middle are being encouraged to perceive the Church as a completely human institution, a government just like any other government.   By...

Got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues and you know it don’t come easy. You don’t have to shout or leap about you can even play them easy. You know being Catholic don’t come easy. Sometimes the hardest part of it is being Catholic among other Catholics.   I’ve got to give it to the Catholic bloggers and podcasters. Me, I'm kind of chump change next to a lot of the others. My blog is a little quirky so I think I only draw a handful of people who get me and dig the song lyric shtick. I have yet to set off a firestorm of controversy or com box hostility. There was that one time when someone on twitter linked to my blog trying to get their friends to chase me down with torches. Nobody bit on the invitation though so all was well. Twitter trolls are a rather cowardly lot. Maybe I have just been too mild mannered and need to pump up the jam just a little. But then like the song says, you don’t have to shout or leap about you can even play them easy. I have...

This is my most recent post as a guest contributor for Vericast. http://www.vericast.net/blog/2014/02/09/satans-slight-hand/ Be sure and leave your comments and to check out the Vericast website while you are there.

I have graciously been asked to share some blogs as a guest contributor on the Vericast Network at vericast.net. Here are the links to those guest blogs if anyone would like to read them. Leave a comment if you would like to. While you are there check out some of the other content on Vericast. http://www.vericast.net/blog/2013/11/07/authority-essentials/ http://www.vericast.net/blog/2013/11/13/knowing-right-fight/ http://www.vericast.net/blog/2013/11/20/hope-disappoint/ http://www.vericast.net/blog/2013/12/06/showing-catholic/ http://www.vericast.net/blog/2014/01/29/arianism/

On Sunday, during his Angelus, Pope Francis prayed for peace in the Ukraine. He and two children then released two doves over St. Peter’s square in a symbolic gesture for peace. The two doves were immediately and quite ferociously attacked by a seagull and a crow. The peace doves managed to escape their attackers and fly away. This is not the first time a dove released from the window of the Vatican has met with such an assault. There was a seagull attack on a peace dove released from the window of the Vatican almost exactly a year ago. January is the traditional month when peace is promoted by the Vatican. The ritual of setting doves free from the balcony in January for world peace originated with Pope John Paul II in 2005. There are often mishaps with the doves, even including their flying back into the window and having to be coaxed back out. Apparently obstacles, and threats to their life, are nothing new for a peace dove. Which is significant. There are many obstacles and threats...