Please pray for Malaysia – Prayer Request
I just received this prayer request.
Please pray for Malaysia…
We, people of Malaysia have no voice in our country..goverment shuts us up.
Our General Elections on 5/5/13 was full of fraud by the goverment n was not fair in many cases including the results.After election, goverment use races as their weapon & trying to cause conflicts among races..
We, people of all races trying to unite & fight for our rights together with opposition..
I fear there might be war among races in our country if the goverment keep stirring up anger within the people.
Please, pray for our nation, for a just & fair leader, for peace among races & religion, for justice.
Thank u brothers & sisters in Christ.
God bless.
Guardian Angel Prayer
Are you friends with your Guardian Angel?
Pray for Fr. Micheal and all Syrian Christians
Kidnapped, lost and forgotten: On the 9th of February 2013, 27-year-old Father Michael Kayal from Aleppo, Syria, was abducted by Islamic extremist rebels. Two months later he is still missing, yet the world remains silent.
Monsignor Georges Dankaye, Rector of the Armenian College, Rome, and Procurator of the Armenian Catholic Church under the Holy See, reveals to us the facts about the kidnapping of Fr. Michael and about the terrible reality in which Syrian Christians are living. This reality is one of bloodshed, torture and inhumanity at an unthinkable level.
“Fr. Michael was my student in seminary for two years in Aleppo. He was very kind and intelligent,” recounts Dankaye, smiling sorrowfully. “He loved sport and music, and to sing, especially liturgical songs. He was always ready to help.”
The two were also over a year together in the Armenian College in Rome, where Michael studied Canon Law at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, after which he was ordained a priest on the 2nd of November 2011.
By the time Fr. Michael returned to Syria, the uprising had already begun and violence swept through the land, making every movement one of uncertainty for the young priest. But his “spirit, enthusiasm and zeal” captured the hearts of both his parish priest and parishioners. As the situation worsened, and refugees flooded in from the peripheries of Aleppo, Fr. Michael along with three other young priests started up a mission with the migrants. “They went every day to the schools where the Muslim families were taking refuge and took them food to eat, providing both lunch and dinner, and then they brought other aid, and doctors as well.”
It seems that Fr. Michael was walking in the steps of the saints – a man of servitude and compassion: “I remember one of his phone calls to me; he said, ‘what I can always do is serve, and nothing can be greater than this,” recalls Dankaye.
On the 9th of February, Fr. Michael set out from Aleppo. He was scheduled to visit Rome, stopping first in a small city on the way to Beirut before arriving in Italy on the 12th of February. He had not long been travelling when at one of the many blockades that plague the Syrian roads a band of rebels stormed the bus. “There were three priests aboard, two in clerics and one Salesian dressed in plain clothes. They saw the two priests dressed in clerics and made them get down; to the third they said nothing.”
“Half an hour later they had phoned his brother, saying, ‘we’ll be in contact soon to come to an agreement.’” Dankaye continues, “From that moment on the only contact was with his brother, never with the Church itself; then his brother spoke to the bishop … and it seems that the bishop informed the government.” Fr. Michael’s family revealed that they made a request for one million Syrian lire and for the liberation of 15 prisoners. However, after having asked the group which prisoners they wanted releasing, the terrorists renounced the request, asking only for the money. “This makes us think that it is a small armed group rather than the Syrian Liberation Front … because the liberation of 15 prisoners would be considered as a good offer.” He explains that “there are about 2000 of these little groups. They don’t organise or coordinate among one another; each group has their own objectives, their own ideals.” Their disorganisation became apparent when, after the family had agreed to pay the ransom, the group made no further attempt at claiming the ransom money.
So what is the situation now for Fr. Michael? Is he still alive? Dankaye states that “the only information we have is from one phone call on the 20th of February; they let him talk to his mother for less than half a minute, where he said, ‘Mum, I’m OK, but pray for me.’ Then from that date on, there has been no more contact. We don’t know anything. It remains a mystery.”
Who is Kermit Gosnell? Have you ever heard of him?
I don’t watch the MSM. They aren’t worth my time, but apparently a lot of people still do watch them.
The New York Times famous slogan, “All the News That’s Fit to Print, ” tells a lot about the MSM (Mainstream Media). They only tell us “news” that fits their agenda, and let’s face it, the Kermit Gosnell trial doesn’t fit their agenda, and Twitter is a flutter with media blackout postings on their silence.
The news is much more than what the media decides to “report”. Check out the real news on Twitter now.
Pope Francis on Pessimism
Facebook has been aflutter with all things Pope Francis these past few days. Catholicwideweb is very happy with the Holy Spirit’s choice for the Chair of Peter. May he receive many blessings during his pontificate, and may he guide us all in his simple, holy way of Christ.
Are you a pessimist? Pessimism is a tendency to stress the negative or unfavorable or to take the gloomiest possible view. It’s a state of mind in which one anticipates undesirable outcomes or believes that the evil or hardships in life outweigh the good.
Introverted or Extroverted Catholicism?
I am taking a couple classes from the Michigan Small Business group, business planning and starting a food related business. The food class, based on the first session, looks to be very informative on many levels. The business planning class, however, is a bit overwhelming.
Part of creating a good plan is to have focus on your business idea. My focus is nearly everything and you can’t create a good business plan around that (or so they say), and so I started to search through my 1000+ Facebook page likes to see what was the more popular of my likes to try to zero in on a focus. Getting a little nervous about my plan, I started to find my “likes” on introverts, entrepreneurs and the like.
I took a breather and connected with a few introverts, listened to a podcast and read a few posts and I began to calm down, while I still need to narrow my focus, I am an introvert and the majority of business planning material is geared toward the extroverted personality. Understanding that, I can now go back to my studying and not take it so personally that I don’t fit into the mold that they seem to want all entrepreneurs to fit in.
Introverts in a nut shell
So where does the Church fit into this? Well my overly active, introverted brain wondered how this application of introverts fitting into the extroverted business model might apply to the Church, especially since I am getting involved in the New Evangelization effort at my parish and vicariate; and the Church is seriously ramping up it’s evangelization efforts. How do we evangelize the extroverts AND the introverts. Too much overt evangelizing and the introverts will be pushed away.
One of the first thoughts for reaching out to the new people at church is to employ greeters. Sure it can be just a “hello” or a “welcome”, but curious introverts would rather just slip in anonymously. One of the posts I found was Introverts in the Church by guest blogger Rev. Adam McHugh in Susan Cain’s blog. Sure, the focus is the Evangelical Church, but we might want to think about it in our own efforts in the Catholic Church. After all, spreading the Good News requires communicating with people.
Rev. McHugh shares an anecdote in the post:
The scowling old man nearly bumped into me as he fled the sanctuary.
As I turned to watch him stomp out to the parking lot, I asked a friend if she knew why he’d left before the service started. She replied, “You know how in your sermon last week you encouraged all of us to be more welcoming to newcomers? Well, after five people came up to him to introduce themselves, he blurted “Can a guy just be anonymous when he checks out a new place? I want to be left alone!” And thus concluded his seven minute survey of our church.
It’s not only cantankerous old men with a flair for storm-off exits who are turned off by hyper-friendly churches, however. As I reflected on that event, I realized that I too would be intimidated and overwhelmed by that many strangers approaching me, no matter how genuine and kind they were. As it turns out, our churches are actually teeming with this species of people called “introverts.” I am one of them, as is 50% of the American population, according to our best and latest research.
For being 50% of the population, introverts are made to feel substandard and cranky as compared to their extroverted brethren. As we struggle with the New Evangelization effort itself and all that it entails, we also need to keep in mind the needs of the individuals we minister to as we try to bring more souls back in to the folds of the Church. Evangelization will not be a one size fits all activity. We have introverts and extroverts; we have people who were offended by “the church” some how; we have the poorly formed, fallen away Catholics, and on and on. Possibly Rev. McHugh’s book Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture
May God bless all of the evangelization efforts everywhere!
Have you ever been on a CRHP Retreat?
I am on the planning team for our newly clustered parish’s CRHP Retreat next month. CRHP is Christ Renews His Parish. My parish has never done a CRHP, but our new clustered parish has been doing them for years. My pastor volunteered me for this task. I had no idea what was involved, but I am starting to get involved with the evangelization committee at our parish and it seemed like a good fit.
The team is a group of nine women plus the pastor. We meet weekly and we pray and get to know each other. We are a month away from the retreat and the tempo is starting to pick up as we work to get everything in order to put on a good retreat.
Myself and another woman from my home parish have never been on a CRHP retreat, but all of the others have. When I asked what the flow of the weekend will be like, the pastor said let it be a surprise. I was kind of taken aback because I am on the planning team after all, but the essence of CRHP is renewal, a renewal that comes from experiencing the weekend for itself.
And so, I will be a team member and a participant as well, since this will be my first CRHP retreat.
The following post explains it well:
Christ Renews His Parish a Male Perspective
It was after weeks of gently pushing, kindly suggesting, and politely begging that my wife convinced me to attend a “church retreat”. I decided to trust her. (Sometimes those closest to us know what we need better than we do.) I was on a business trip in Seattle, when I stepped out on the hotel balcony to enjoy the night air and stare at the stars over the bay when I decided I needed to go to CRHP. I stepped outside that night to think about my life, my job, my family, and my faith. All of those generic esoteric questions that I was pondering would soon have an answer.
A lot of the men who have experienced the greatness of a CRHP retreat have similar stories.Even though I agreed to go, when I arrived, I was still reluctant to participate. Who wants to go grunt and beat drums, and share feelings? Besides, I go to Mass every Sunday with my wife. I have plenty of great friends. That’s enough, right? I mean, it was during football season. . . .
So much in this life will always remain a mystery, our Church unabashedly calls them Mysteries, and as such, parts of CRHP should remain a mystery, until you experience it. I will say all of this is available to you, but you have to say “Yes”.Let’s fast forward past CRHP at what I have gained because I said “Yes”.
I have friends. I have real friends, in almost every seating section at nearly every Mass. Most of them are older than I am. Most of them grew up in different eras, and different parts of the country. Some of them have had similar struggles as me. Some of them are converts like me. Some have had to go through annulments like me. Some have had much tougher struggles than I have. I respect them all. They aren’t the same generic parishioners to me when I was just going to Mass; they are Charlie, Keith, Chris, Bob, and Ryan. I know their names. They are great men that I respect and value in my life.
I gained perspective.I gained a renewed confidence in my faith.I have a renewed understanding of my relationships.
I have a renewed sense of Whose I am.
I have an even better marriage. (If your wife has already attended, she will understand)I didn’t have to grunt, or beat drums, or really even share my feelings, but what I did find was a renewed energy and desire to deepen my faith. I didn’t know that night in Seattle what I was searching for, but it was simple. . . all I had to do was say yes to CRHP.
I encourage everyone to go to CRHP. If you doubt me, then go ahead and sign up, I dare you.-Joshua
