CATHOLIC FAITH AT HOME RESOURCES
For Our Family of Parishes
St. Thomas More, St. Bernadette, St. Mary's, St. Peter's
JULY 17
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PLEADING THE BLOOD OF CHRIST
July is dedicated to the precious blood of Christ!
Here is a powerful prayer invoking graces from
devotion to the precious blood of our Lord!
“Father in heaven,
may we all be cleansed by the saving Blood of Jesus.
May our consciences be purged of dead works.
Scripture says that evil is defeated by the Blood of the Lamb,
so we ask that the Blood of Jesus
cover all who are in need of protection
(all civil, religious and lay leaders, our families, friends, enemies,
all those for whom we have promised to pray, and ourselves).
We mark the borders of our nation and the
doorposts of our churches, homes, schools and
places of employment with the Precious Blood of Jesus.
Also, we cover our vehicles that no one
may ever be injured through them.
Thank You, Lord, for shedding Your Blood for us.
May the Water and Blood that came from the side of Jesus
create a protecting fountain of grace,
one which flows directly from the throne of God to us.
Come, Lord, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit.”
Click below to pray this prayer from the Vatican:
Click below to pray the::
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WHY PRAY?!
If God's will is unchanging,
why should we pray?
Hear Fr. Mike Schmitz's answer
to this age old question
in just a few short minutes:
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Do You Know Jesus?
Are You Sure?
To know Jesus and to know about Jesus are two different things.
We should always want to know the Lord more,
but where do we start?
In our challenging culture of
relativism, noise, silencing and wokeness,
it can be difficult to focus on our priority of seeking Jesus.
Tanner Kalina tells us about the four habits of the Christian life,
encouraging us to seek
a more intimate & steadfast
relationship with the Lord.
Click below to hear these four habits:
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BISHOP BARRON'S
LITURGY OF THE HOURS
BOOKLETS
Praying the liturgy of the hours is a beautiful tradition
to have in your daily life.
But let’s be honest: it’s a big commitment.
It is the Church’s official prayer,
and the highest form of prayer after the Mass.
It is an ancient, structured
way of praying Scripture throughout the day,
focusing especially on the Psalms.
It hearkens back to the Jewish custom of praying at fixed hours,
a practice continued by the early Church.
It can be very confusing
to find your way through the four volume set.
So here is a way to start small and keep it small if you need to.
Bishop Barron offers beautiful new monthly booklets
that make praying the Liturgy of the Hours easy,
accessible, and affordable for all Christians.
Click the link below to discover how to subscribe to the:
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National Eucharistic Revival Resources
Scandal, division, disease, doubt.
The Church has withstood each of these throughout our very human history.
But today we confront all of them... all at once!
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How can I get involved?
There are many ways all over the United States!
Catholics can become
Prayer partners,
Share testimonies
Call on the Holy Spirit
All to encourage and strengthen this movement.
This revival calls on:
laypeople, families, religious orders, and priests
To volunteer their:
time, talents, and prayers
In pursuit of:
the grassroots renewal our world so desperately needs.
Check out the links BELOW for resources available now:
1. A document from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB) about the Eucharist:
3. From Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens, a free course on learning to:
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WHAT IS PURGATORY?
Scroll down to find the answer!
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GOSPEL READING REFLECTION
For July 17, 2022
The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Year C - Lk 10:38-42
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LIVING ACTIVE, CONTEMPLATIVE LIVES
"The Lord said to her in reply
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”
- Our Lord was ever the master teacher, not merely the teacher of a universal doctrine about salvation, but also the teacher of individual souls who needed formation. One way he taught persons about what they needed was by responding to them with something completely unexpected but which they really needed to hear. Those messages also benefit us 2000 years later.
- When Jesus entered Bethany, Martha stepped forward and welcomed him, not only into the village but also into her home. Martha was a good hostess, preparing a meal for the Lord and his disciples. She obviously wanted things to go well, which was why she felt burdened with worry. Maybe there was some ego involved, too. She wanted Our Lord to think well of her.
- Mary was not helping Martha. Instead, she sat at Christ’s feet, listening to him.
- Martha welcomed Our Lord with words and hospitality. Mary, it seems, welcomed Christ by listening to him.
- Perhaps Martha had tried to get Mary’s attention to get up and help. Perhaps Mary had deliberately ignored Martha. Maybe there was some laziness in Mary’s attitude. We can certainly project our own experiences with siblings here.
- But our Lord had come to their home less to eat than to teach, while Martha was more focusing on providing the food and Mary more on learning. That’s why Mary had chosen the better part, and Our Lord was not going to take that away from her.
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ANSWER TO QUIZ
What the Church teaches about purgatory is very simple:
“The souls of the just which,
in the moment of death, are burdened with venial sins or temporal punishment due to sins,
enter purgatory.”
Our belief in purgatory is based on a passage
from 2 Maccabees, in which the Jewish hero,
Judas Maccabeus, orders prayers and sacrifices
for slain patriots, that their sins might be forgiven.
Jesus, too, speaks of the possibility of forgiveness
after death when he teaches,
“Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven …
in this age or in the age to come” (Mt 12:32).
Fr. Reginald Martin writes:
“We must remember one thing:
purgatory is not a ‘second chance’;
it is the final step for righteous individuals
who, before death, lacked an opportunity
to atone for venial sins
or do sufficient penance for
serious sins already confessed.”
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Click the link below to find more:
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BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Author of a multitude of books
about our Catholic faith
&.
Popular Teacher!
Anything Peter Kreeft writes is worth reading
&
Anything he recommends is worth remembering
& he recommends:
*Click the above title to see his video recommendations
Book list & the time on the video when he discusses each book:
Autobiographies
8:30 Confessions, by Augustine with translation by Sheed
11:12 A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken (Seven Story Mountain, by Thomas Merton; or Surprised by Joy, by CS Lewis)
Novels
12:40 The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
14:04 Till We Have Faces, by Clive Staples L. (A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens)
Plays
15:36 A Man For All Seasons, by Robert Bolt
16:44 Our Town, by Thornton Wilder (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)
Epics
19:44 Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
22:45 Chronicles of Narnia, by Clive Staples L. (Silmarillon, by J.R.R. Tolkien)
Fantasy
26:16 The Great Divorce, by Clive Staples L.
29:20 The Screwtape Letters, by Clive Staples L. (Descent into Hell, by Charles Williams)
Science Fiction
30:56 A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller
32:00 Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley (The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury)
Spirituality
33:55 The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence
34:50 Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux (Abandonment to Divine Providence, by de Caussad)
Apologetics
36:00 Pensees, by Blaise Pascal
36:50 The Problem of Pain, by Clive Staples L. (In Defense of Miracles, by CS Lewis)
Philosophy
37:55 The Apology of Socrates, by Plato
39:30 The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius (Republic, by Plato)
Popular Philosophy
40:12 The Introduction to Thomas Aquinas, by G.K. Chesterton
41:20 Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton (Ethics, by Aristotle)
History
43:10 The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton
44:00 Our Lady of Guadalupe: And the Conquest of Darkness, by Warren Carroll (The City of God, by Augustine)
Theology
45:00 Mere Christianity, by Clive Staples L.
45:45 Summa Theologiae, by St. Thomas Aquinas, with a condensed, edited version by Peter Kreeft (The Theology of the Body, by Christopher West)
Poetry
46:50 Lepanto, by G.K. Chesterton
47:33 The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot (The Dream of Gerontius, by John Henry Newman)
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