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March 16, 2015Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent    Reading 1 Is 65:17-21 Thus says the LORD:Lo, I am about to create new heavensand a new earth;The things of the past shall not be rememberedor come to mind.Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happinessin what I create;For I create Jerusalem to be a joyand its people to be a delight;I will rejoice in Jerusalemand exult in my people.No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,or the sound of crying;No longer shall there be in itan infant who lives but a few days,or an old man...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Joshua New International Version (NIV) 23 After a long time had passed and the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then a very old man, 2 summoned all Israel—their elders, leaders, judges and officials—and said to them: “I am very old. 3 You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you. 4 Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land...

March 15, 2015 - Fourth Sunday of LentFourth Sunday of Lent    Reading 1 2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23 In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place.But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the...

Please pray for freeper Shimmer1 as she continues to undergo treatments. Here is the message I received from her last night: I’m very weak tonight. I just got up from another nap. Chemo this week (wednesday) made me so weak, I’m using a wheelchair when I go to hyperbaric treatment. I cry at the drop of a hat. Now even sitting isn’t helping much. Usually when I sit for a while, or lie down, I recover. Now just movement exhausts me. The movement of walking six feet and lying down is enough to make me moan with exhaustion for probably...

March 14, 2015Saturday of the Third Week of Lent    Reading 1 Hos 6:1-6 “Come, let us return to the LORD,it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.He will revive us after two days;on the third day he will raise us up,to live in his presence.Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;as certain as the dawn is his coming,and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!He will come to us like the rain,like spring rain that waters the earth.” What can I...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Joshua New International Version (NIV) 7 But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things[a]; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri,[b] the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. 2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.” So the men went up and spied out Ai. 3 When they returned to Joshua, they said,...

O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,How blessed will be the one who repays youWith the recompense with which you have repaid us.How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little onesAgainst the rock! (Ps. 137:8–9)2What nasty person would say such things? Well—a pretty angry psalmist! This portion of Psalm 137 is one of various “imprecatory psalms” (Pss. 7, 12, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 83, 109, 137, 139). “Imprecation” is the calling down of curses or divine judgments on someone. Imprecatory passages have shocked some modern editors into performing “psalmectomies” on psalter hymnals, excising these...

Lost Liturgies File and an Invitation: Solemn Sunday Vespers By: Msgr. Charles Pope One of the fixtures of larger parish churches prior to the last century was the singing of Vespers (evening prayer) on Sunday afternoons. Prior to the 1950s, Masses were not permitted to be celebrated after 12:00 noon and thus the concept of a Sunday (or Saturday) evening Mass was unknown. Some very beautiful music, indeed some of the greatest music of the Church, was composed for Sunday Vespers. Best known is the 1610 Vespers of Claudio Monteverdi (Vespro della Beata Vergine). Monteverdi (a Catholic priest and composer) also composed the...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Joshua New International Version (NIV) 6 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. 2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the...

My dear wife of 30 years has been battling malignant melenoma for two years and has recemtly suffered a stroke because of bleeding in thr brain from 2 lesions. We are both in our early fifties. My grief knows no bounds. We are believers in Jesus and what the Bible teaches. We need your prayers and God's help and healing. If its time for her to go home I have no concept of living without her and how to function. Im overcome.

March 13, 2015Friday of the Third Week of Lent    Reading 1 Hos 14:2-10 Thus says the LORD:Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;you have collapsed through your guilt.Take with you words,and return to the LORD;Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,and receive what is good, that we may renderas offerings the bullocks from our stalls.Assyria will not save us,nor shall we have horses to mount;We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’to the work of our hands;for in you the orphan finds compassion.” I will heal their defection, says the LORD,I will love them freely;for my wrath is turned...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (NIV) ----

PLEASE, please pray for a baby boy named Ezra. He was born with his intestines in his chest and his lungs are underdeveloped. He was doing well, but he's developed pneumonia and a blood clot. The doctors are giving this baby boy just one more try at the request of his family. PLEASE, prayer warriors! PLEASE pray for Ezra! PLEASE. We just lost an 18 year old to cancer two weeks ago. Our family is reeling already. Ezra needs lungs.

Within a few weeks after the election of Pope Francis, rumors began to circulate in Rome that the new Pontiff would appoint Archbishop Piero Marini as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW). For liberal liturgists, these rumors were cause for celebration; for conservatives, for despondency. It never happened. After many months of silence—during which time the rumors continued to swirl—the Pope announced that Cardinal Robert Sarah would be the new head of the CDW. Catholics who favor a reverent liturgy should rejoice at that appointment; the cardinal from Guinea is an excellent choice. Archbishop Marini—who was once private...

Don't use your words to hold you in bondage, but use your words to free you from them. The Bible tells you that "You are snared by the words of your mouth." Your words can keep you in a situation or condition or can free you from them. In my own case years ago I was eating bananas just fine, but this one time I ate one and got sick to my stomach. And for awhile everytime someone offered me something with bananas in them I was quick to say, "I can't eat them" or "They make me sick to...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Joshua New International Version (NIV) 13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” 14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord[e] have for his servant?” 15 The commander of the Lord’s army...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm Joshua 1:9 Be Strong and Courageous, for the LORD, Your God is with you wherever you go.

March 12, 2015Thursday of the Third Week of Lent Reading 1 Jer 7:23-28 Thus says the LORD: This is what I commanded my people:Listen to my voice;then I will be your God and you shall be my people.Walk in all the ways that I command you,so that you may prosper. But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.They walked in the hardness of their evil heartsand turned their backs, not their faces, to me.From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day,I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.Yet they...

Pope Francis greets pilgrims during his March 11, 2015 general audience in St. Peter's Square. Credit: Bohumil Petrik/EWTN. Pope Francis said Wednesday that the elderly play a key role in the lives of the youth, and revealed that he still keeps the letter his grandmother wrote him for his ordination in his daily prayer book. “I still treasure the words my grandmother wrote to me on the day of my ordination. I carry them with me to this day inside my breviary,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his March 11 general audience. In the...

This weekend the Vatican formally hosted one of Britain’s most virulently pro-abortion and pro-homosexual writers, as well as the head of an American organization promoting female ordination, at an officially sanctioned event inside Vatican City walls. Organizers spoke to Vatican Radio as well as the secular press, praising the new atmosphere within the Church’s leadership that made the conference possible.