Weird Lenten Fast

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Filed under Don’t try this at home.   

My favorite deacon often quips that an Irishman’s idea of a seven course meal is a six pack of beer and a potato.  But I am fairly certain that he would think that fasting on a diet of beer is not much of a fast.

But one blogger is going to give it a dry. Gulp. Unfortunately this guy is from Iowa.

Via the Catholic Herald:

“An American blogger has pledged to live only off beer during Lent.

Following the ancient tradition of Bavarian monks who brewed stronger beer during the Lenten fast in order to subsist on an almost entirely liquid diet, J Wilson will spend the 46 days of the Lenten period drinking only beer. The young man, who writes about beer on the internet and claims never to have done a Lenten fast in his life, will drink bockbier, which was originally brewed by the Paulaner monks in Munich.

The beer is a strong, dark, malty lager and is known as liquid bread. Traditionally, it was brewed by the monks for the periods of fasting in Lent and Advent. Mr Wilson has brewed his own bock-bier for the project.

He wrote: “I have a genuine love for beer, and am very drawn to the rich history it carries. Forty-six days is a long time without food. But if the the Paulaner brothers could do it under the guidance of God, I should be able to as well. A spiritual journey of this nature is no laughing matter, and I very much look forward to sharing it with you.”

I hope that he doesn’t fast and drive.

Posted in Liturgical Year, News of the Weird | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Ash Wednesday. We are but dust.

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

We begin the long 40 days of lent. Forty days spent in the desert of our hearts. Dark ashes are smeared on our foreheads, the very place that we were anointed with oil at our baptism and confirmation, to remind us that we are mortal.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember whom you belong to.

Remember where your true home is.

Turn back to the lord and do penance. Fast. Pray. Give alms. Learn to love as Christ loves us from the cross.

The cross is Christ’s throne of victory over evil and death. But his victory was accomplished through persecution, unspeakable suffering, and through the outpouring of his blood.

No human being passes through life without suffering. Suffering is often an obstacle to faith. Yet understanding the crucifixion and the power of the cross is the key to understanding, enduring, and accepting suffering.

Jesus tells us to pick up our crosses and follow him. The way of the cross is not easy. The way of the cross is not comfortable.  But it is a condition of discipleship:

..and whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Mt. 38).

Along the way of the cross we fall face down in the dust and mud of our sin. But Jesus does not leave us down in the muck. He stands ready to help us up if we repent and strive to transform our lives.

Lent is a time to turn back to the Lord. Lent is a time to nail our sufferings to the cross. It is a time to conform ourselves to Christ.

In the waters of baptism we died with Christ. In those same waters we rose with Christ and became a new creation.

Let us remember whom we belong to.

*************************************************************************************

Reflection (taken from Sacred Heart Online Prayer retreat)

Desert of My Soul

In the desert of the spirit
I come to the mirage of Your Grace
Again and again,
Ready to dip my dry, parched, hurting soul
In the waters of Redemption.
Yet no relief for my thirst do I find
Though I search through the stones,
Though I watch and pray,
Aching for Your Grace.
You at once elude me,
Yet still I feel Your Presence
Beyond the numbness and pain.

Read more at the Sacred Heart Online Prayer Retreat

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Lent: Got Questions?

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Then get thou over to Jimmy Akin’s place. He has done the research so I don’t have to. His Annual Lent Fight post is a treasure trove!

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Saint of the day: St. John of God

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

I love being Catholic. Many of our saints were sinners before their conversion to Jesus. There is hope for me!

From Catholic Culture:

St. John of God
In 1503, at the age of eight, John fled from his parents for some unknown reason. For a while he was a shepherd, then a book dealer. Matters spiritual were of no particular interest until he heard the preaching of Blessed John of Avila. Then his conversion was so sincere and sudden that he was considered to be out of his mind. He was incarcerated in the Royal Hospital in Granada, and suffered the cruel treatment of the day. Here he discovered how to show his love for God, through caring for those who were unable to respond to this cruel treatment. He resolved to devote the remainder of his life caring for people living on the margins of society.

Following John’s death on his 55th birthday, March 8th, his helpers banded together to live in the same radical, spiritual way of Hospitality that John had exemplified and in 1572 they were approved by Pius V, as the Hospitaller Brothers of (St) John of God. The members bind themselves by a fourth vow, the service of the sick. Because of his work our saint has become the patron of hospitals and the dying. His name is in the Litany of the Dying. Read more here.

Catholic Online has a more in depth article here.

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Happy Fat Tuesday

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

The day before Lent begins is often called fat Tuesday. The name comes from a time in the Church when the Lenten fast was much stricter. All of the meat, eggs, dairy and fat had to be used up before Ash Wednesday.

For a commentary on Fat Tuesday head over to the Catholic Exchange.

Are you prepared for Lent?  Rome Reports that there is a new site to help you make a good Lent:

March 8, 2011. Xt3.com, an online Catholic social network created for the 2008 WYD in Sydney, Australia, has unveiled a new online calendar for Lent 2011. The calendar was made to help Catholics grow spiritually during the 40-day period leading up Easter.

This new calendar offers daily reflections, passages from Scripture, videos that explain Catholic teaching, and stories from the lives of the saints.

The calendar will also suggest a daily “Lenten act” to help Christians prepare for Easter.

The first calendar feature will appear on Ash Wednesday, March 9.



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The Theology of the Body is deep in our hearts

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

The National Catholic Register is hosting an online symposium on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of  Philadelphia kicks it off.

Excerpt:

“The important series of articles on the theology of the body in the following days is an effort to show the pastoral effectiveness that is within the Holy Father’s rich catechesis. The theology of the body is not over our heads. It is deep in our hearts.

Teachers do not take shortcuts. In fact, every great teacher patiently leads the student from the known to the unknown. Pope John Paul II began with the known, that is, the familiar teaching of Jesus as recounted in the 19th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew. The Pharisees want to take a shortcut around Jesus. But there is no shortcut around Jesus, who is the beginning, the center and the goal of history. Nonetheless, the Pharisees pressure him with the question, “May a man divorce his wife for any reason whatever?” Jesus responds that there are no shortcuts when it comes to the meaning of marriage. In fact, Jesus insistently teaches that to understand the truth about marriage we must go back “to the beginning”; we must go back to the moment of creation. Jesus refuses the shortcut and firmly responds: “Have you not read that from the beginning ‘the Creator made them male and female’ (Genesis 1:26-27). … ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will be one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24)?”

Pope John Paul II proceeded step-by-step. He dedicated careful, thorough and extensive consideration to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the Book of Genesis and the teaching of St. Paul. John Paul offered a refreshing and new perception of the meaning of the human person as a gift. The teaching contained in the theology of the body corresponds to the deep hunger of the human person. In the 30 years since the Holy Father proclaimed this catechesis, there has been a strong and widespread grassroots reception of its content.” Read more here.

The Theology of the Body should be must reading for every Catholic. As the Cardinal said,

“The theology of the body is not over our heads. It is deep in our hearts.”

Amen Cardinal. Amen

H/T Pewsitter

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We are Catholics…we belong to Jesus…

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Archbishop Jose Gomez, the new archbishop of Los Angelos, gave his first Sunday homily yesterday, and it is wonderful. H/T Rocco Palmo of Whispers In The Loggia.

Excerpt:

“The readings today from the Word of God are all about Catholic identity and Christian mission. They are about who God made us to be, and what he wants us to do.

We are Catholics, my friends! That means our lives are not our own. I feel that more and more as time goes on. No matter where we come from, no matter what we do for a job — we belong to Jesus, who loved us and gave his life for us. We belong to his family, the Church. And we belong to one another, as Christ’s sisters and brothers.

We have to learn to see our lives with the eyes of Christ. In his eyes, each of us is here for a reason. Each of us is called by God. He calls us by name, like a Father calls his beloved children.

God knows your name. God knows my name. Every time I think about this, my friends, I can’t help it: I am amazed.

St. Paul said: “From before the foundation of the world, he destined us in love to be his children through Jesus Christ.”

Think about what that means! The God who created the sun and the moon, the stars and all the earth, wanted me to be born. Ever since the world began, this God wanted you to be born.

That’s the Gospel, my friends. That good news should totally change our lives! To know how much our Father loves us. To know that he gave his only Son so that we could live  forever with him as his sons and daughters!

This is the good news that he commands his Church to proclaim to the ends of the earth.”

Do take the time to read the homily (scroll down the post). It is worth your time.

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Saints of the day: Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Saints Perpetua and Felicity were martyred in 203. They were Catechumens when they were arrested.  The women are two of eight women that are remembered in the 1st Eucharistic prayer of the Roman Missal. The six others are Mary and saints Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia and Anastasia.

From Catholic Culture:

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity
Vibia Perpetua, a well-to-do young woman and mother, and Felicitas, a slave who gave birth to a child three days before suffering a martyr’s death, were catechumens. Against such prospective converts the persecution of Septimius Severus was particularly severe. These two holy women suffered death on the seventh of March in Carthage. The Breviary relates the following touching episode:

Now the day had arrived when they were to be thrown to the wild beasts. Felicitas began to be sorrowful because she feared she would have to wait longer than her companions. For eight months she had been pregnant and therefore, according to Roman law, could not be executed before the birth of the child. But the prayers of her fellow sufferers hastened her time and she gave birth to a baby girl.

While she was suffering from the pains of childbirth, one of the guards called out to her, “If you are suffering so much now, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts?” “Now I suffer,” she answered, “but there Another will be in me, who will suffer for me, because I will suffer for Him.” When she was in travail she had sorrow, but when she was set before the wild beasts she rejoiced” (Martyrology).

Finally, on the seventh of March, these heroic women were led into the amphitheatre and severely scourged. Then they were tossed about by an exceptionally wild cow, gored, and thrown to the ground.

The account of their martyrdom was so popular in the early church, St. Augustine had to remind his flock that it was not Holy Scripture.

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity is an account of their deaths. The first part was written in Latin by Perpetua herself.  The account is one of the earliest known Christian documents. You can read it here.

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Homily for 9th Sunday in Ordinary time

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

” My God is bigger than your storm” (Monsignor Bognanno)

Deacon Greg has a great homily posted. He gets it. Really.

Excerpt:

Living the gospel is hard work.   Following the teachings of Christ is hard work.

But it pays off.

Think back on what we have heard these last few weeks, what Jesus has asked us to do.  Be poor in spirit, merciful, a peacemaker.  Be perfect, and holy, like your heavenly Father.  Love your enemies.  Don’t worry about tomorrow. Trust in God to take care of you.

These teaching are solid, and unflinching, and difficult.

These teachings are not sand.

They are rock.

And just as it’s hard to dig into rock, it’s not easy to burrow into these lessons.

It’s so much easier to NOT try to be perfect and holy, to be just good enough to get by.  It’s easier to just settle for sand.

But if we don’t live out the gospel message, and hold fast to our faith, the rock of our lives, what will happen when storms come?

What will happen when the company decides to downsize, and you find yourself laid off?  What will happen when the x-ray shows a suspicious spot?  What will happen when you get the call late at night with news you never expected?

If we don’t have that secure foundation in faith, what will any of us do when we find that the forecast for our life has changed – that a devastating storm is about to hit?

We might give in to despair, or cynicism, or spite.  We might surrender to fear or doubt.

Or, if we have built our lives on the rock of Christ, we might find comfort in trusting in God’s will, and knowing that He will never abandon us, even in the most severe of storms.

As we prepare to move into Lent this week, and a season of deep prayer and penitence, look back on the lessons we’ve been given.  Re-read the gospels from the last few weeks.  Dip into Matthew’s gospel and pray over the entire Sermon on the Mount.  There you will find a foundation to which all of us can cling during times of trouble, and times of testing.

Let the rains fall and the wind howl.

With the gospel beneath us, and God beside us, we will be safe and secure.

Get the whole enchilada here.

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Go to this web site

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

I am so humbled.  A great site posted my reflection for lent.   Get thou to the Brown Pelicans!.

 

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