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Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Abraham and Sarah New International Version (NIV) 21 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac[a] to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm New International Version (NIV) Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

A woman kneels down as she lays flowers in a makeshift memorial near the site where a gunman held hostages for 16 hours at a popular Sydney cafe, Australia (PA) Father Brendan Purcell is based at St Mary's Cathedral, close to where Monday's siege took placeAn Irish priest based in Sydney said he was struck by how people turned to prayer when a gunman took hostages at a cafe.Father Brendan Purcell is based at St Mary’s Cathedral, just a five-minute walk from the nearby Lindt Cafe, where Iranian-born gunman Man Haron Monis took dozens of hostages on Monday morning.Father...

One young woman, a college student at Texas Christian University, tells the following story: “Several years ago, a 19-year-old mother found herself pregnant in Houston, Texas from a one night stand. She had a thriving acting and modeling career and was planning to move to LA to persue more in the performing arts as soon as she had enough money. Her parents were ex-pats in Indonesia, and she was living alone in the big city with no one to turn to. She had enough money to get an abortion, and she had the legal right to get an abortion since...

December 18, 2014Thursday of the Third Week of Advent    Reading 1 Jer 23:5-8 Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;As king he shall reign and govern wisely,he shall do what is just and right in the land.In his days Judah shall be saved,Israel shall dwell in security.This is the name they give him:“The LORD our justice.” Therefore, the days will come, says the LORD,when they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives,who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt”;but rather, "As the LORD...

George Weigel About a year ago, I suggested to one of the top editors of a major American newspaper that his journal’s coverage of things papal left something to be desired, as it seemed based on the assumption that Pope Francis was some kind of radical wild-man, eager to toss into the garbage bin of history all those aspects of Catholic faith and practice that mainstream western culture finds distasteful. My friend replied, in so many words, look, you know how these media narratives are: they’re like bamboo. Once they get started, there’s no stopping them. They just keep...

“And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself” – the prophet Elijah to the prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 18:27 How boring would life be if we only spoke to one another with necessities? How mundane would play-by-play sports be if sports announcers were replaced with the equivalent of the Emergency Response System robot voice? That is exactly what we would have in our daily conversations without the crayon of the English language known as “sarcasm”. I will be the first to admit that I...

ALEXANDRIA -- The First United Methodist Church in Alexandria, which lost some members about a year ago after a dispute involving its gay choir director, will close its doors for good at the end of 2014. David Mantor, pastor of the church, said the decision to close the church resulted from falling attendance, membership and financing problems. Mantor said statistics he's seen from United Methodist Church headquarters show a "downward spiral" of membership and donations across the whole UM church for the past 30 years. "This is a problem that's going on everywhere," Mantor said. "And that's why we're closing."

Not a shock: megachurch celebrity tv star preacher Joel Osteen doesn’t know the Bible, reports the clever and energetic Tristyn Bloom of The Daily Caller. (The story’s several weeks old but I just saw it so pass it on for those of you who hadn’t.)In a Monday post to his verified Facebook page, Joel Osteen ministries, read: “God said in Numbers 11:23, ‘Moses, is there any limit to My power?’ He was saying, ‘Moses, you saw Me part the Red Sea, stop the sun for Joshua, keep three Hebrew teenagers safe in a fiery furnace, don’t you realize that I...

He is Not Limited by Your Limitations Today's Scripture "Is anything too hard for the LORD? …" Genesis 18:14, NIV Today's Word from Joel and Victoria If you could see what God has stored up for you, the people you’re going to meet, the places you’re going to go, the good breaks that are going to find you, you would be amazed. It’s going to be the surpassing greatness of God's favor. But too often, we make excuses. We come up with reasons why this is not going to happen for us. “Well, that sounds good, but I don’t...

Redemption— Creating the Need it Satisfies " The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him… —1 Corinthians 2:14 " The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe…” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The majority of people think of themselves as being completely moral, and have...

Where in the New Testament are "priests" mentioned? Full QuestionThe New Testament mentions three categories of Church leaders: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. So how can the Catholic Church justify its office of "priest"? The New Testament writers seem to understand "bishop" and "presbyter" to be synonymous terms for the same office (Acts 20:17-38). AnswerThe English word "priest" is derived from the Greek word presbuteros, which is commonly rendered into Bible English as "elder" or "presbyter." The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23). The Bible says little about the duties...

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:4-6)The Incarnation was the Father’s plan. There is one eternal God, eternally manifest in three persons; Father,Son and Holy Ghost. God has always been the Father, and by him Fatherhood derives its essence. Forever there has been in the Godhead, the...

FULL TITLE: Cardinal Burke receives petition signed by 30,000 supporters: says, ‘do not give way to discouragement!’ On Thursday, LifeSiteNews presented Cardinal Raymond Burke with a handsomely bound book signed by over 29,000 people who had expressed their thanks for the cardinal’s Vatican service, and pledged to pray for him and to follow his example.The cardinal expressed his “deepest gratitude” for the show of “support and most of all for your prayers.”An online petition of support for the Cardinal Burke, one of the most unequivocal pro-life and pro-family voices in the Catholic Church, was launched in November by LifeSiteNews after...

ROME — Pope Francis had quite a 78th birthday. between Cuba and the United States — and the disclosure that the Argentine pope played a key role as broker. Francis is being credited for helping bridge the divide by first sending letters to President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba, and then having the Vatican host a diplomatic meeting between the two sides in October.

uropean Parliament President Martin Schulz receives 2015 Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, Schulz is acknowledged in Charlemagne's city as an "outstanding representative of the revival of European democracy". Aachen (Catholic news). Martin Schulz who has his roots in the Aachen region (born in Eschweiler, living in Wuerselen) receives the Charlemagne Prize 2015. Schulz was an outstanding representative for the revival of European democracy, it said in the grounds given by the Charlemagne Prize Board on Saturday in the imperial city of Aachen. As a pioneer, he has rendered outstanding services to....

But this article isn’t about the whole apparition story so much as it is about the tilma, Juan Diego’s cloak, on which the image of the Blessed Mother was imprinted. In the centuries following the event, some amazing and unexplainable qualities have been discovered about it. Here’s four (literally) awesome facts about the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the modern struggles and disagreements over the Liturgy, there tends to be a list of friends and opponents depending on one’s stance. For those of us with a more traditional leaning, Pope St. Pius X looms large as a friend and an image of tradition. He is usually seen as a defender of the tradition and a great proponent of what is called today the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)—so much so that the Society of...

NEW YORK (RNS) In the latest clash between the Catholic hierarchy and one of the church’s leading anti-abortion crusaders, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan accused the Rev. Frank Pavone of continuing to stonewall on financial reforms, and Dolan said he is cutting ties with his group, Priests for Life. In a Nov. 20 letter to other U.S. bishops, Dolan said he did not know if the Vatican would now step in to take action against the New York-based priest, who for years has angered various bishops by rejecting oversight of the organization by church authorities and for refusing to sort...