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...

From my other blog "A Catholic Mind - For What It's Worth From the very first day that he stepped out on the balcony of St Peter's, there have been those who have been horrified at Pope Francis. As a matter of fact, a blog headline on that first day of his pontificate read "The Horror". Even though the only actions the Pope had taken, as the Pope, at that time was that he wanted to dress and live simply, he waved and he asked for prayer. Even so, from that day to this, for nearly three years many have done whatever they can to prove that Pope Francis is not the man for the job. Every breath he takes, every move he makes, every single day and every word he says, they've been watching him. Watching for every misstep, watching for every misspoken word or mistranslation, watching for every analogy that might not hold up. Scrutinizing every  homily for the most minuscule perception of inconsistency. Then using those perceived inconsistencies...

You can find this blog on the Vericast Network http://www.vericast.net/blog/2014/08/26/attitude-gratitude/

The Church has released a couple on interesting documents this month that coincide with each other. The first was a document by the International Theological Commission clarifying  Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church. The second was the working document for the Synod of the family this October. Although the documents are interesting in and of themselves, their relationship to each other is what is of most interest. (Personal sidebar: Both documents are rather long, by the way, which the Vatican is wont to do) Last year Pope Francis called for an Extraordinary General Assembly, or Synod, of Bishops to meet in October of 2014 for the purposes of addressing the challenges the Church faces concerning the family. This Synod would bring together the presidents of national bishop’s conferences, the heads of Eastern Catholic churches and Vatican officials. This is to be followed up by the Ordinary General Assembly, or world Synod of Bishops, in October of 2015. This Synod ...

Wrote a guest blog for the Vericast Network http://www.vericast.net/blog/2014/06/05/spiritual-rules-engagment-bearing-fruit/

  Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch Ps 127:1 I don’t follow all of the Catholic bloggers. There are far too many. I am connected to a handful of bloggers, and through that connection am, at times, aware of when a blogger brouhaha has commenced. Usually what happens is that the Pope does something for which he is sharply and immediately criticized by one group, then vehemently defended by another. The comboxes and Facebook comments start to explode. Then it is on like Donkey Kong in a Catholic Cage fight of epic proportion.   Such was the case this past week and boom went the word warriors. Look, I get it. I am a writer, albeit a writer of none renown, my blogs only get like 30 views. But still a writer. We love words and we know how to use them. One of our most satisfying relationships is with our thesaurus. Which is why, by the way, another writer cannot say to me that they w...

I spend a little time on my blog, now and then, defending the Pope. Me and the Pope are pretty tight. There have been rumors out there of the Pope calling people up on the phone. The most recent one being that he called a woman to tell her that she could receive communion despite a second marriage issue. People are rockin’ and rollin’ about that one. I’ll ask him about it the next time he calls me. The Pope calls me all of the time. We just shoot the breeze. Sometimes he asks for my opinion on doctrine and dogma and stuff like that. Mostly I just tell him “Holy Father, keep your chin up. There are people on your side. Dude, we’re watching your six, we got your back” This past Friday was my birthday. I was born in 1958. That is the same year that Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII was elected. There are some people who say that there weren’t any more real Popes after 1958. Others say that there have been Popes but that they have all been heretics or if not heretics they haven’...

Another guest blog I wrote for vericast.net commenting on the Pope's video greeting to Pentecostal Conference. http://www.vericast.net/blog/2014/02/26/brother-brother/

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...

It seems I am still on my give the Pope a break kick. According to a sede-vacantist site on the internet, which will remain nameless to protect the innocent from looking them up out of curiosity, Pope Francis is a tango loving, 60’s hippie liberal and that is one of the reasons that he can’t be a legitimate pope. Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me. Seems that in by gone days young Jorge loved the night life (I got to boogie), had a girlfriend and was a bouncer in a bar. Misspent youth? Heavens, who knows. But even if that were so he can sit next to me on that bus, along with St. Augustine whose mother used to stand praying outside of his keggers. But Jorge is all grown up now, he’s the Pope and he still loves the tango, says it’s a part of him. Wasn’t the tango condemned by the Catholic Church in 1907? Isn’t that really, really, really bad? Omg. He’s from Argentina! The tango dance and tango music are part of the cultural art. All I can say is that I woul...