This video shows young Catholics from the Institute Plinio Correa de Oliveria in Brazil campaigning for life and family on the streets. This is very encouraging to watch, even if you cannot understand the dialogues in the Portuguese language.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Bishop calls on Saint Michael to defeat the enemies of the Church
Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Ill. has asked parishes, schools, hospitals and religious houses to insert the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel at Sunday Mass.
The move comes in response to a new federal requirement that will force many Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for sterilizations and contraceptives.
"It is God’s invincible Archangel who commands the heavenly host, and it is the enemies of God who will ultimately be defeated," the bishop said in a Jan. 24 letter to the Catholics of his diocese.
Read more:
St. John Bosco’s First Noble Patroness
January 30, 2012
Juliette Colbert
Juliette Colbert, a native of Vendée, had married Marquis Tancredi Falletti of Barolo, and of her it could be said, even as we read of Tabitha in the Acts of the Apostles: “This woman had devoted herself to good works and acts of charity.” Indeed, she used her abundant wealth to help the working classes and the poor. A most generous and alert woman, she used to say: “Whatever you give to charity is never lost. Let us not keep track of what we give. God will take care of that.”
Carlo Tancredi Fallett and Giulia Falletti Colbert di Maulevrer
She liked to visit the women’s prisons where, with official authorization, she would spend from three to four hours every morning. Here she would endure insults and sometimes even blows. She accepted these humiliations, prayed and induced others to pray, gave generous alms, and thus was able to turn these wild creatures into repentant and resigned women…
Previously, at King Charles Felix’ request, she had brought to Turin the Sacred Heart Sisters to educate upper-class girls, and had placed at their disposal a large, magnificent villa not far from Turin…
Don Bosco, a man to appreciate noble deeds, knew full well that when a cholera epidemic had swept through Turin in 1835, this magnanimous lady, who was vacationing near Moncalieri, had hastened back to the city; day in and day out she had nursed the sick in private homes and hospitals, consoled the dying and promising to take care of their poor widows and children, which she faithfully did…
The venerable lady was now sixty years old. At this first meeting Don Bosco detected a great humility under her majestic demeanor, and sensed that her reserve and noble bearing were blended with the affability and kindness of a mother and of a lady given to charity. He was satisfied with this first interview.
Juliette Colbert
(The Biographical Memoirs of Saint John Bosco, by Fr. Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, 1839-1916)
The Glory of the Ladies
St. Marcella
(325–410) She was a Christian ascetic in ancient Rome. Growing up in Rome, she was influenced by her pious mother, Albina, an educated woman of wealth and benevolence. Childhood memories centered around piety, and one in particular related to Athanasius, who lodged in her home during one of his many exiles.
He may have taken special interest in her, thinking back to his own youthful practice of playing church. Athanasius interacted with his hosts on theological matters and recounted anecdotes of his own monastic life. His most spellbinding stories, however, were the miraculous tales of the desert monks. As a parting gift he left behind the first copy of his biography, The Life of St. Anthony.
Marcella’s wealth and beauty placed her at the center of fashionable Roman society. She married young, to a wealthy aristocrat, but less than a year later he died. Her time of mourning over, young men soon came calling again. After her husband’s early death, she decided to devote the rest of her life to charity, prayer, and mortification of the flesh and was convinced that God was directing her to a life of poverty and service, she shocked her social circle when she left behind her fashionable dresses for a coarse brown garment and abandoned her usual extravagant hair styling and makeup.
Appearing as a low-class woman, she started a trend as other young women join her. They formed a community known as the brown dress society, spending their time praying, singing, reading the Bible, and serving the needy. Her palatial home was now a refuge for weary pilgrims and for the poor. After her husband’s early death, she decided to devote the rest of her life to charity, prayer, and mortification of the flesh.
Summoned by Bishop Damasus (who arranges lodging at Marcella’s hospitality house), Jerome arrived in 382. It was an exhilarating time for this woman of letters, who had immersed herself in both Greek and Hebrew, to be entertaining one of the great minds of the age. He spent the next three years in what he called her “domestic church,” translating the Bible into Latin. She learned under his teaching even as she critiqued his translation. He spoke and wrote of her Christian devotion and scholarship and commended her influence on Anastasius, bishop of Rome — particularly in his condemning Origen’s doctrines, which Jerome declared a “glorious victory.”
Indeed, his admiration of Marcella was unbounded, not only for her intellectual acumen but also for her deference to men who might be threatened by her vast store of knowledge.
Marcella, however, was also known for her efforts to restrain Jerome from quarreling with his opponents — or at least helping him control his legendary temper. Eleven of his extant letters are addressed to her, and she is mentioned in many of his other writings. In one of his letters he responded to her query about the truth of Montanism.
Someone was apparently attempting to convert her, and she was deeply interested in what she is hearing, though suspecting that the claim that they possess a more authentic spirituality might have been false. Jerome writes a lengthy point-by-point refutation of the movement and then concludes:
“It was at the home of Marcella that Jerome first met Paula, a devoted and scholarly woman who would become his long-time intellectual counterpart. When Jerome returned to the Holy Land, Paula relocated there as well. They invited Marcella to join them, but she remained in Rome to oversee her growing house of virgins, where she was addressed as Mother. But hard times were ahead of her. She was in her late seventies in 410, when the Goths, led by Alaric, pillaged the city. Soldiers stormed the residence, demanding she relinquish her hidden jewels and wealth, which long before had been sold to fund her charitable work. When she had nothing to give them, they struck her down. She was taken to a church set up as a sanctuary, but she died the next day.”
Her Aventine Hill palace became a center of Christian activity. She was an associate of Saint Paula. Saint Jerome corresponded with her, and he called her “the glory of the ladies of Cadereyta.” His letter To Principia is a memoir and biography of her life.
Her feast day 31 January.
Is Jubilee cooking contest illegal?
“The anti-monarchy group Republic is warning schools they may break the law if they take part in a cooking contest to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The contest, launched by the Duchess of Cornwall, is for 10 to 15-years-olds. But Republic says involving children in celebrations of the monarchy without teaching them about republicanism as well is a breach of the Education Act.”
Running from republican cooking
No word yet on what a republican cooking contest would cook up.
Occupy Wall Street protesters throw condoms, drown out speakers at Rhode Island pro-life rally
by Ben Johnson
PROVIDENCE, RI, January 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week.
About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday.
The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”
That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”
They gathered around speakers at the podium, shouting them down or otherwise jostling them and members of the audience.
Bracy, who finished only a quarter of his keynote address before being drowned out by chants and catcalls, said the Occupiers – who carried a large sign reading “Occupy Providence” and wore distinguishing arm bands – physically bumped several people. “They’re touching you. They’re swarming you,” he said.
The Providence chapter openly planned its actions on its Facebook page, Bracy said.
Bracy said he was disappointed when he tried to ask a man from the national Occupy Wall Street movement, who identified himself as “Dallas,” what opposing the right to life had to do with economics. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/why-does-occupy-wall-st.-support-big-abortion “You can’t have a reasoned conversation with these people,” he said, “They simply try to taunt you. They’re smug, snarky, arrogant. You won’t get a straight answer.”
Dallas told Bracy he was on a 13-city national tour to teach Saul Alinsky tactics to local organizers.
“Their actions have made it loud and clear, whatever else they are, they are pro-abortion – and they are willing to attack the pro-life movement,” Bracy told LifeSiteNews.
Members of the Occupy movement, which putatively focuses on economic and financial issues, have begun aggressively demonstrating against those who advocate for the rights of the unborn.
Approximately 15 protesters from Occupy D.C. disrupted the March for Life Youth Rally in the nation’s capital last Saturday evening.
Last Monday, they disrupted a prayer service for the unborn in front of the Supreme Court.
“What they did yesterday was clearly the most outrageous and egregious thing they’ve done so far,” Bracy said on Friday. “I don’t know if this is a sign of what’s to come from them, but I think it’s important Catholics and pro-lifers know who these people are.”
However, such outrageous and offensive tactics may prove counterproductive for the pro-abortion movement. “They couldn’t have done us a bigger favor,” Bracy said. “We’re more popular with the legislators than we’ve ever been, because they’re absolutely appalled at their behavior.”
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saint says modern pedagogy does not want to speak to children about eternal truths: death, judgment, and much less, hell
"God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world in order to be happy with Him in the next." Thus does the child correctly answer the catechism question of why God made him.
In consonance with this basic notion, Catholic education has traditionally meant fashioning the child's whole personality for the practice of virtue. It thus produced children with consciences, in marked contrast to the troubled and problem children so prevalent today.
Modern schools have, for the most part, lost sight of - or utterly ignore - the true finality of education. Let us look back then, to a time when saints formed children, leading them along the path of virtue.
Following are some selected passages from the educational guidelines laid down by Saint John Bosco in the last century. These forgotten truths are every bit as timely now as then.
On music: "Any educational center without music is a body without a soul. Music educates, soothes, and elevates; it is a most efficacious means for instilling discipline and contributing to morality."
On love for beauty: "The teacher must also help his charges perfect their sentiments for beauty. This is a natural sentiment, but it must be developed and perfected. All children have a capacity to appreciate the beauties of nature, art, and religion."
"I recall that when I was a boy my mother taught me to look up and gaze at the sky and to observe the marvels of the countryside. During the serene and starlit nights, she took me outside and showed me the heavens and said to me, 'It is God Who created the world and put so many beautiful stars above. If the firmament is so beautiful, how will paradise be?'
And when spring came around, with its wealth of flowers across the countryside, she would exclaim: 'How many beautiful things the Lord has made for us!' And when the clouds gathered, and the skies darkened and the thunder roared: 'How powerful the Lord is! Who can resist Him? Therefore, let us not commit sins.' And in winter, when all was covered with snow and ice, and we would gather together around the fire, she even amidst our poverty, would say: 'How grateful we should be to the Lord Who has provided us with all that is necessary! God is truly our Father: Our Father, Who art in heaven..."
On intellectual formation: "To cultivate only the intellect, abandoning all the other human faculties, is to deform man."
"Intellectual education encompasses a series of norms, of practical measures and appropriate resources to provide the juvenile intelligence with the knowledge of letters and sciences indispensable and helpful for life. But the school should not presume to take the place of the family, and much less the Church. School must teach in relation to life."
On moral formation: "All, or nearly all, educators see the development of the intellect as their principal responsibility to the child."
"However, this displays a lack of prudence, for they do not understand—or else easily lose sight of—human nature and the reciprocal dependency of our faculties. They direct all their efforts to the development of the cognitive faculties and sentiments, which they erroneously and tragically confound with the faculty of love. In so doing, they completely disregard the sovereign faculty, the will, which is the only source of true and pure love, and of which the sensibility is but a type of outward appearance."
"What is the obligation of the Christian teacher? According to the spirit of Jesus Christ and the practice of His moral law, the mother, the father or the teacher, must avoid giving a vitiated education to the children. Providence has entrusted to them; their immediate end must be to direct the child along the path of sanctity, whose guideposts are renunciation and generosity. To communicate the spirit of sacrifice, the teacher must direct his charges, above all, to cultivate their reason and will without neglecting any of the other faculties."
On social formation: "Games are also social elements that should not be belittled. For this reason, we give them much importance. Games teach the child to control himself and not to injure or bother his companion: to develop social sensibility, to increase habits of courtesy, affability, and manners, to stimulate the exercise of justice and loyalty, indispensable conditions not only for games but for all forms of social activity."
On religious education: "Education must develop in youth a passion for good and a hatred of evil. The teacher is duty-bound to understand that this is an effect of correspondence or lack of conformity to the will of God."
"One of the defects or vices of modern pedagogy is the reduction of religion to pure sentiment. For this reason, it does not want to speak to children about, or even name, the eternal truths: death, judgment, and much less, hell."
From Biografia y Escritos de San Juan Bosco, Madrid: B.A.C., 1955.
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