Medjugorje, Mary’s Meals and Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow

Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow’s first experience of delivering aid was to drive a Land Rover crammed with food, clothing and medicine from the Highlands of Scotland down to Bosnia. At the time he was a salmon farmer: he had taken just a week’s holiday to do it. When he got back, his family shed was bulging with aid that had poured in from friends and friends of friends. He quit his job, sold his house, and learned to drive articulated lorries. Now, about 20 years later, his charity Mary’s Meals feeds half a million children every day.

But that is not the start of the story. At least, not how Magnus tells it. The real beginning was 10 years earlier, when he was 14, and he went on a pilgrimage to a small village called Medjugorje...  (Continue reading at  CatholicHerald.co.uk )

The Incorrupt Body of St. Bernadette of Lourdes

The  body of St. Bernadette  was placed in a chapel in the Church of St. Gildard at the convent in Nevers where she lived for thirteen years. The Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction at Nevers  welcome visitors. The body of Saint Bernadette is still shown despite being  132 years old

Video:Relic of Virgin Mary To Promote Motherhood In Russia

A sacred relic, believed by some Orthodox Christians to be the belt of the Virgin Mary, is drawing thousands of Russian pilgrims in search of a cure for a myriad of ailments including infertility. But the treasure -- a 2,000 year old cincture woven from camel fur - is also having political resonance.
Russian leaders have called the country's shrinking population a matter of national security and now the influential Orthodox church has joined the fight. It wants to take the relic to pregnancy centres to discourage women from having abortions and save mother Russia by promoting motherhood. The relic came from the Greek monastic complex of Mount Athos.
(Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports from Samara.)

Prayer In Our Every Day Lives by Susan Conroy on EWTN

Here Susan Conroy gives some wonderful insights into prayer in our every day lives. (Visit EWTN Audio Library for many fine podcasts) There is a silent break for about 1.5 minutes half way through this. The second half of the talk then commences.

The Catholic Church:Heaven, Hell, Purgatory

Just Think of It!

DO you believe in life after death? Do you agree that the human soul is immortal, that once it comes into existence it will never go out of existence? If you don’t, have you considered what the future holds for you? Have you the courage to do that, or do you just make glib statements like “Once you die you’re finished”, without considering the implications of what you’re saying? I know that there are people who say they believe that we come back into this world in a new form: they call this reincarnation. I notice that such people always expect to appear again as someone or something that is very beautiful. But suppose you come back as a rat or a woodlouse:yuck!

The Catholic Church teaches that the human soul is immortal, that it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and that it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection (Catechism of the Catholic Church,sect.366) This belief is the foundation on which our belief in heaven, hell, purgatory is based.  And the teaching of Jesus as
reported to us in the Gospels is the ground on which our belief stands.

Jesus often spoke of people having eternal life, of people living forever. See the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. And the crowning event of his own life was not his death, but his resurrection, by which he showed that he could overcome death, that death no longer had power over him, and that we could believe him when he promised that we also in our time would overcome death by rising at the end of time. So our belief in life after death is really a way of saying that we believe Jesus is telling us the truth, that he can do for us what he promises to do. He really is the centre of our religion, the leader who inspired the Apostles to go and proclaim that he is the Lord of life who is always alive: they were so convinced of the truth about Jesus’ resurrection that they gave their lives rather than deny it.
 (Author: Fr. Robert Arthure, Cappoquin, Co.Waterford, Ireland-produced with kind permission)

Video of Apparition to Marija Pavlovic at Varese, November 20, 2011

(See: Varese News for photographic gallery of the event)

St. Jean-Marie Vianney: Sin is The Executioner of The Good God And The Assassin of The Soul

Sin is the executioner of the good God, and the assassin of the soul. It snatches us away from Heaven to precipitate us into Hell. And we love it! What folly! If we thought seriously about it, we should have such a lively horror of sin that we could not commit it. O my children, how ungrateful we are! The good God wishes to make us happy; that is very certain; He gave us His Law for no other end. The Law of God is great; it is broad. King David said that he found his delight in it, and that it was a treasure more precious to him than the greatest riches. He said also that he walked at large, because he had sought after the Commandments of the Lord. The good God wishes, then, to make us happy, and we do not wish to be so. We turn away from Him, and give ourselves to the devil! We fly from our Friend, and we seek after our murderer! We commit sin; we plunge ourselves into the mire. Once sunk in this mire, we know not how to get out. If our fortune were in the case, we should soon find out how to get out of the difficulty; but because it only concerns our soul, we stay where we are.


We come to confession quite preoccupied with the shame that we shall feel. We accuse ourselves by steam. It is said that many confess, and few are converted. I believe it is so, my children, because few confess with tears of repentance......
 
He who lives in sin takes up the habits and the appearance of the beasts. The beast, which has not reason, knows nothing but its appetites. So the man who makes himself like the beasts loses his reason, and lets himself be guided by the inclinations of his body. He takes his pleasure in good eating and drinking, and in enjoying the vanities of the world, which pass away like the wind. I pity the poor wretches who run after that wind; they gain very little, they give a great deal for very little profit -- they give their eternity for the miserable smoke of the world.


My children, how sad it is! when a soul is in a state of sin, it may die in that state; and even now, whatever it can do is without merit before God. That is the reason why the devil is so pleased when a soul is in sin, and perseveres in it, because he thinks that it is working for him, and if it were to die he would have possession of it. When we are in sin, our soul is all diseased, all rotten; it is pitiful. The thought that the good God sees it ought to make it enter into itself. And then, what pleasure is there in sin? None at all. We have frightful dreams that the devil is carrying us away, that we are falling over precipices. Put yourself on good terms with God; have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; you will sleep as quietly as an angel. You will be glad to waken in the night, to pray to God; you will have nothing but thanksgivings on your lips; you will rise I towards Heaven with great facility, as an eagle soars through the air....