The Feast of Mary Help of Christians : May 24.

In 1573 Pope Pius V instituted the feast in

thanksgiving for the decisive victory of Christianity over Islamism.

 

The tradition of this advocation goes back to 1571, when  the whole of Christendom was saved by Mary Help of Christians when Catholics throughout Europe prayed the Rosary. The great battle of Lepanto occurred on October 7th 1571. For this reason this date has been chosen as the feast of the Holy Rosary. In 1573 Pope Pius V instituted the feast in thanksgiving for the decisive victory of Christianity over Islamism.

Confession: THE SACRAMENT OF LOVE AND MERCY OF GOD.

Confession has benefits. Here are ten:

1. Confidentiality guaranteed. There’s nothing like confessing your sins to someone guaranteed not to tell anyone else. Sometimes you need to talk in absolute confidence. Even under subpoena, a priest can’t tell anyone what’s said to him in confession. He can’t even hint at it. Now that’s confidentiality.

2. Housekeeping for the soul. It feels good to be able to start a clean life all over again. Like going into a sparkling living room in your home, it’s nice when clutter is removed – even if it’s your own.

3. A balm for the desire for revenge. When you have been forgiven you can forgive others. If the perfect Jesus forgives me, who am I to want to avenge the slights in my life. Think: “Why did they promote him over me?’ or “Mom played favorites!”

4. Low cost therapy. It’s free, which makes it cheaper than a psychiatrist for dealing with guilt.

5. Forced time to think. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. To examine our lives and acknowledge failings marks the first step of making things right with God, others and ourselves. Life can be more worth living when you ponder the meaning of your own life.

6. Contribution toward world peace. Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, said that the imbalances in the world that lead to war and tensions “are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man.” Peace of soul leads to peace of heart leads to peace beyond oneself.

7. A better neighborhood. Confession leaves you feling good about yourself, thereby cutting back the inclination to road rage and aggressive shopping cart driving. With the grace of the sacrament you’re energized to, as Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more.”

8. Realistic self-perception. Confession helps overcome arrogance when you have to admit you’re as much of a sinner as anyone else. It helps build tolerance for others’ perceived shortcomings.

9. One more benefit of being Catholic. There are lots of benefits, including a sense of community, liturgical rites to help us encounter God in prayer, and the wonderful sense of humanity exemplified in the saints, from Mary, the loving Mother of God, to Augustine, the exasperating son of Monica. The sacrament that leads us to inner peace is among the greatest boons.

10. Closeness to God. Confession helps you realize that you have a close connection to God and receive his grace through the sacraments. What can be better than knowing God’s on your team, or, to be less arrogant about it, that you are on God’s.

Cultural sectors: the modern equivalents of the Areopagus - REDEMPTORIS MISSIO

Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel.

There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture

depends to a great extent on the influence of the media, it is not enough to use the media

simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary

to integrate that message into the "new culture" created by modern communications.

After preaching in a number of places, St. Paul arrived in Athens, where he went to the Areopagus and proclaimed the Gospel in language appropriate to and understandable in those surroundings (cf. Acts 17:22-31). At that time the Areopagus represented the cultural center of the learned people of Athens, and today it can be taken as a symbol of the new sectors in which the Gospel must be proclaimed.

The first Areopagus of the modern age is the world of communications, which is unifying humanity and turning it into what is known as a "global village." The means of social communication have become so important as to be for many the chief means of information and education, of guidance and inspiration in their behavior as individuals, families and within society at large. In particular, the younger generation is growing up in a world conditioned by the mass media. To some degree perhaps this Areopagus has been neglected. Generally, preference has been given to other means of preaching the Gospel and of Christian education, while the mass media are left to the initiative of individuals or small groups and enter into pastoral planning only in a secondary way. Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel. There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media, it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the "new culture" created by modern communications. This is a complex issue, since the "new culture" originates not just from whatever content is eventually expressed, but from the very fact that there exist new ways of communicating, with new languages, new techniques and a new psychology. Pope Paul VI said that "the split between the Gospel and culture is undoubtedly the tragedy of our time,"⁶² and the field of communications fully confirms this judgment.

There are many other forms of the "Areopagus" in the modern world toward which the Church's missionary activity ought to be directed; for example, commitment to peace, development and the liberation of peoples; the rights of individuals and peoples, especially those of minorities; the advancement of women and children; safeguarding the created world. These too are areas which need to be illuminated with the light of the Gospel.

We must also mention the immense "Areopagus" of culture, scientific research, and international relations which promote dialogue and open up new possibilities. We would do well to be attentive to these modern areas of activity and to be involved in them. People sense that they are, as it were, traveling together across life's sea, and that they are called to ever greater unity and solidarity. Solutions to pressing problems must be studied, discussed and worked out with the involvement of all. That is why international organizations and meetings are proving increasingly important in many sectors of human life, from culture to politics, from the economy to research. Christians who live and work in this international sphere must always remember their duty to bear witness to the Gospel.

Our times are both momentous and fascinating. While on the one hand people seem to be pursuing material prosperity and to be sinking ever deeper into consumerism and materialism, on the other hand we are witnessing a desperate search for meaning, the need for an inner life, and a desire to learn new forms and methods of meditation and prayer. Not only in cultures with strong religious elements, but also in secularized societies, the spiritual dimension of life is being sought after as an antidote to dehumanization. This phenomenon-the so-called "religious revival"-is not without ambiguity, but it also represents an opportunity. The Church has an immense spiritual patrimony to offer humankind, a heritage in Christ, who called himself "the way, and the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6): it is the Christian path to meeting God, to prayer, to asceticism, and to the search for life's meaning. Here too there is an "Areopagus" to be evangelized.

Names and Personal Identity - H. Edward Deluzain

This year, more than 120 million babies will be born on earth. Those who survive will sooner or later undergo the initiation process of receiving a name. At one time anthropologists thought that some groups of people were so "primitive" and unorganized that they didn't use names. We now know that the anthropologists were mistaken and that the idea came about because research fieldworkers were not able to get inside the minds of the people well enough to understand the customs and taboos that required that names be kept secret from strangers (Feldman). The truth is that names are a part of every culture and that they are of enormous importance both to the people who receive names and to the societies that given them.

What is hope?

According to Greek mythology, the first woman on EARTH, Pandora, was given a box that she was not to open under any circumstance. Too curious to resist, she opened it, and all of the evils of the world flew out: hate, pain, destructiveness, starvation. When Pandora saw what she had done, she closed the box before the last thing in there could escape. That last thing was hope.

Five Major Elements Of Christian Belief - Walter Lindgren

Christian people typically hold to five traditions that comprise a worldview that shapes the nature of their beliefs. This philosophy may also contain characteristics that observers perceive as factors which, in fact, characterize a person as a Christian. The writing that follows is not intended to be a creed or the last word on the matter, but a consistent summary of Christian beliefs.

The Essence of Love

Love - it's the one thing everybody talks about, but few truly understand. People have always searched for love - love with family (in particular with parents), love with friends, love with intimate partners. Most of us are never completely fulfilled, and many are miserable their entire lives. It seems almost to be an elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We grow up believing that "one day I'll have it", and yet, in human terms, what does love really mean?

For many people love means acceptance. Fooled into believing that to be loved is to be accepted, and to be unloved is to be an outcast, we use (actually, we abuse) the word "love" as a reward for good behavior. We believe that if we behave a certain way, or adopt a particular way of thinking, we will be loved more and therefore accepted. And on top of that, we do things in
order to please others in the hope that we will be loved just that little bit extra. Loving and pleasing are not the same thing.

Love has become conditional. "If you don't do this, I won't love you anymore". How many parents have told their children that they won't love them if they continue misbehaving or being disobedient? How many couples have told each other they will love them more if they do as they are told? Love is not a prize to be idly thrown about as a bribe. Love is serious stuff because we have lost sight of what love really is. If we truly understood love, we would stop playing games with each others emotions and
lives and not use it to emotionally blackmail each other for personal gain.

Real love is unconditional love, and means exactly that - unconditional. Loving someone exactly as they are, not trying to make them into someone we may be more comfortable with, just 100% acceptance. But how do you know you can unconditionally love someone? Well, you have to start by unconditionally loving yourself.

Unconditional love can only be expressed when we have experienced it for ourselves. We expect to be loved by others, but we find it difficult to accept the necessity of loving ourselves first in order to understand what it means to express love. Unconditional love stems from forgiving ourselves and others in order to find the compassion and understanding necessary to know what it means to unconditionally accept a person, and we can only do that when we unconditionally accept ourselves.

When we know what it means to unconditionally love we free ourselves from our emotional limitations and allow others to be themselves. We stop judging and condemning, we stop criticizing and manipulating. Unconditional love nurtures the growth of wisdom, and fosters the principle of truth, for without truth unconditional love is unable to exist. Love will only exist in an honest heart, free from fear and doubt. Become honest with yourself and you will find what you are looking for, but avoid facing the truth within and the illusion of conditional love with keep you from true happiness.

Recognizing our inner fears is the first step towards unconditional love. Many people fear intimacy; we fear allowing another person to get close to us and find out who we really are, insecurities and all. We fear we will be rejected because deep down we don't think we're good enough, yet a fear of intimacy and love always destroys a relationship before it has even begun. If we are honest with ourselves, we would recognize all the wonderful things about us that make us unique and irreplaceable.

Knowing and loving our uniqueness will attract a person into our lives who will love us as we are. Living a lie or an illusion will only serve to create further illusion and deception, eventually resulting in misery. Unconditional love is the greatest lesson humanity can learn.

Love is a pure state of being; it is ever present, growing and evolving through unconditionally loving ourselves, and then having the understanding to share that unconditional love with another. Learning to forgive those we believe have emotionally hurt us, we can bring unconditional love into our lives by changing our thoughts and our entire outlook on life. Through forgiveness we can touch the essence of our love, and change the perception we have of our life.

Love is the most important thing in life; without it, we make our life harsh and cruel, empty and meaningless. The rainbow is in our hearts, and love really is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, waiting for us to claim it as our own.