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July 10 2020 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time 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 render as 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...

JOSEPH THE SLAVE GENESIS 39 (NIV, excerpted,emphases added) 1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge...

A nation that is faithful to God and its fatherland will be miraculously blessed by God, His Eminence Metropolitan Daniel of Chiatura and Sachkhere of the Georgian Orthodox Church said during his Sunday sermon at the Holy Trinity Cathedral. A miracle was seen in Georgia, where there was no eruption of the coronavirus epidemic despite the fact that the churches were never closed, as in many other countries, Met. Daniel emphasized, reports 1tv.ge. “The Georgian ethos is one of the first,” Met. Daniel said. “Someone may ask how it survived. It survived for two reasons: it was dedicated to the...

Priests agree 25% drop in personal income and voluntary redundancy scheme in place Catholic Church donations have plummeted in Dublin during the Covid-19 outbreak, falling by as much as 80 per cent. The Dublin Archdiocese said the need to close churches had “resulted in very serious consequences” for its income stream. A restructuring strategy to address “this urgent situation” is now under way to reduce costs, it said. This is expected to take some months to complete. Two donation streams – the “common fund” collection for priests and the “support for share” fund – have dropped by 70 and 80...

While the Irish island of Little Skellig was long thought to have been inhabited by nothing but a variety of seabirds, a new archaeological discovery demonstrates that monastics once labored in asceticism on the inaccessible crag. The archaeologist Michael Gibbons and a group of climbers recently located the remains of an early Christian church located on a narrow precipice overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, reports Afloat. Gibbons estimates that the church dates to the late 7th-early 8th century, when there was already a functioning monastery on nearby Skellig Michael. He described the location, 8 miles west of the Iveragh Peninsula...

'This proves' that 'there is no pandemic exception to the First Amendment,' said Mike Berry, First Liberty Institute General Counsel.WASHINGTON, D.C., July 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The United States Navy has revised its policy prohibiting active service members from attending in-person religious services. Those who disobeyed and attended church services had risked court-martial. The move is seen as an important victory on behalf of religious liberty by Navy personnel affected by the previously enacted ban, and by those who fought on their behalf. The change comes just days after First Liberty Institute sent a letter on behalf of active duty...

Vatican silent as verdict triggers geopolitical tremorsISTANBUL (ChurchMilitant.com) - In a historic verdict, Turkey's top court has returned the world's greatest Byzantine basilica to its previous status as a mosque after it abolished President Atatürk's 1934 decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum. Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, reached a unanimous verdict declaring that president Kemal Atatürk's cabinet had no right to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum as part of his secularist reforms and has rendered the decision unlawful. The court is expected to deliver its judgment Friday, but Turkish journalist Mehmet Ardıç, a close...

“O Queen of Heaven, you gave us the Scapular as an outward sign by which we might be known as your faithful children. May we always wear it with honor by avoiding sin and imitating your virtues. Help us to be faithful to this desire of ours.” (mention your request here) Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. “Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.”

A California bishop challenged Catholics online to “cut it out” and better represent their Christian faith through their social media engagement. On Tuesday, Bishop Robert Barron, an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, issued a “pastoral cry of the heart” to encourage Catholics to stop tearing each other apart online and instead provide well structured and charitable arguments. “I understand that people are passionate, especially about religious matters, but when it comes to this commentary we always must keep truth and love in the forefront,” he said. Speaking of social media, Bishop Barron said that “I must admit the vitriol, negativity,...

As America gets ready to celebrate her 244nd birthday this as a nation, we should take a moment and pause to wonder what became of this once mighty nation. Is it so far-fetched to believe that our nation will not last forever? Or even last another decade intact? Would we recognize her 10-20 years from now? Would the Founders of this once great nation even recognize her today? Most likely not. Looking around today, it seems almost inconceivable that 400 years ago, our nation was once forged by Pilgrims who were fleeing an oppressive, monarchical Europe, seeking only religious liberty...

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Sobering Spiritual Truths According to St. John of the Cross In today’s post I would like to ponder some hard and sobering spiritual truths, but ones that will set us free.In calling them “hard truths”, I mean that they are not the usual cozy bromides that many seek. They speak bluntly about the more irksome and difficult realities we face. If we come to accept them, though, they have a strange way of bringing serenity by getting us to focus us on the right things rather than spending our time...

"Offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). Every faculty you have is to be used for God’s glory. In Romans 12:1 Paul pleads with believers to present their bodies to God as a living and holy sacrifice, which is an appropriate and acceptable act of worship. But as someone has rightly said, the problem with living sacrifices is they tend to crawl off the altar. That's because sacrificial living demands spiritual discipline and constant dependence on the Holy Spirit. We as Christians aren't always willing to do that. According to Paul, the motivation and...

Open Letter to The Honourable Gavin Newsom, Governor of California from His Eminence Kyrill Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America in light of the decree issued by the Governor of California that forbids choral singing in churches. Your Excellency, I hereby express my protest against the recent prohibition of liturgical singing in houses of worship, which is an infringement of the rights and religious freedoms of the clergy and faithful of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Diaspora, the other Local Orthodox Churches, performing their ministry in this state, as well as other religious bodies. During the years...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Lamentations 2 2 [a]How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion     with the cloud of his anger[b]! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel     from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool     in the day of his anger. 2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up     all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down     the strongholds of Daughter Judah. He has brought her kingdom and its princes     down to the ground in dishonor. 3 In fierce anger he has cut off     every horn[c][d] of Israel. He...

“Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:4-6).

July 9 2020 Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 Thus says the LORD: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, Sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my...

JACOB LOVES JOSEPH, SO HIS BROTHERS HATE HIM GENESIS 37 (NIV, excerpted,emphases added) 1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. by OTTAVIO VANNINI "Joseph and His Brothers" Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers...and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When...

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‘It is extremely concerning that there may now be some further delay in allowing the return to public worship,’ wrote Father Michael J. Kane, pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge. ‘It is deeply distressing that Catholics cannot receive the Sacraments.’COATBRIDGE, Scotland, July 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A Catholic priest has published an objection to the Scottish government’s continuing ban on public church services. Father Michael J. Kane is the pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge, a town about 10 miles east of Glasgow. In a June 26 open letter to Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Fulton...

'No absolute religious freedom since Henry VIII' LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - Protestant England never enjoyed absolute religious freedom since Henry VIII broke with Rome, a top evangelical leader is conceding, as 25 Christian leaders — including a Catholic theologian — challenge the churches' lockdown as a breach of the Magna Carta. Church leaders who have launched a judicial review of the lockdown are contending that the state criminalized Sunday worship for the first time in centuries — despite the government allowing churches to reopen July 4 under strict guidelines. Churches should never have been shut in the first place and "this...