Saturday, May 21, 2022
Finally! A True Roman Catholic Archbishop!
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
God First Loved Us
Love comes to those who already have love. God first loved us and that gift is ours even before we set out to find it.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Shout Out, "I LOve You!" With Your eyes
In the silence of our hearts we should shout out with our eyes, "I love you!" to every person we pass on the street.
T
The Gesture Of A Beggar
It is marvelous how people become who they really are once you reach out your hand to them in a gesture of the beggar. It is an experience only beggars understand.
T
Monday, May 16, 2022
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Franciscan Tunics
T
Friday, May 13, 2022
Fast And Pray The Rosary On Friday, May 13th, 2022 For An End To Abortion
Thursday, May 12, 2022
The Franciscan Charism
Our mission as Franciscans is simply to be who we are and to allow the light of our peace and mutual love to radiate to everyone we come into contact with.
T
God's Infinite Fire
We enter into possession of God when He invades all our faculties with His light and His infinite Fire.
T
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Contemplation Is A Way Out Of Self-Centeredness
Once we discover interior silence, compassion flows. The deeper we enter into inner silence, the deeper becomes our compassion for others. It is impossible to enter through the doorway into silence without becoming a part of God's embrace of al humanity in its suffering and joy.
T
Paradox Of the Mystical Life
One of the paradoxes of the mystical life is this: that a man cannot enter into the deepest center of himself and pass through that center to God unless he is first able to pass entirely out of himself and empty himself and give himself to other people in the purity of selfless love.
T
Loving The Creator Through His Creation
Friday, May 06, 2022
Tradismatic Trentacostalism
by Clement J. Harrold
Steubenville, Ohio, home to Franciscan University, is a small city on the banks of the Ohio River linking the Buckeye State with Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Like much of the Rust Belt, Steubenville has seen better days. But coinciding with economic downturn has been a spiritual renewal that offers hope to the American Church: a unique blend of the “traditional” and “charismatic” liturgical-spiritual elements that in many other places are pitted against each other. It is a synthesis that appeals to head and heart alike, suggesting what the Church might become in the twenty-first century.
Read entire article:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/03/tradismatic-trentecostalism
T
Hidden In The Wounds Of The Savior
"I confess to my Creator that my life has been spent wholly in darkness. But I will hide myself in the wounds of Christ crucified and bathe in His blood, and so my wickedness will be consumed and I will rejoice with desire in my Creator."
Catherine of Siena
T
Thursday, May 05, 2022
Tuesday, May 03, 2022
What Does God Want Me To Do?
Who among us is brave enough to ask ourselves, "Is this what I should be doing, what I really want to do with my life? Is this what God wants me to be in this life?"
Monday, May 02, 2022
No More Long Winded Sermons!
Sunday, May 01, 2022
Catholics Need To Wake Up Against The Woke!
Imitating Christ
The open palms of his hands, especially released St. Francis from the knotted tangle deep within. The open palms. The imitating of Christ on the cross. Vulnerable, Open. Christ pouring Himself out to us. The cross! God's final victory over forces deep in our hearts.
T
Saturday, April 30, 2022
Monroe County, Ohio: Begging For Stones
We are preparing to build the Portiuncula Chapel which is a smaller scale model of the original Portiuncula Chapel in Assisi, Italy that St. Francis of Assisi rebuilt sometime around1211 A.D. to replace the original Immaculate Conception Church built by my Great-Great Grandfather, along with the Catholic Community of Monroe County, Ohio in 1874 that was torn down in the 1970's.
We have gathered up several cut sand stones but are still in need of more of these stones. If you have some cut sandstones around your property we are begging everyone to drop them off into the tree line next to the Immaculate conception Cemetery in Ozark, Ohio (Ozark-Eddy Bridge Road) toward the village of Woodsfield.
Thank you and God bless each and every one of you!
Pace E' Bene! (Peace and All Good!)
Chris Dickson, F.L.A.
(I am a direct Burkhart and Burkhard descendent)
T
Friday, April 29, 2022
Massimo Coppo: A Monk And Prophet Of Our Times
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What Have We Franciscans Become?
Who are we Franciscans now? What have we become? One huge shrine of stones reflected from the walls of Assisi, Poggio Bustone, Fonte Colombo and Greccio? Is that all we are now? Where are the beggars with cords? Patched habits?
T
Thursday, April 28, 2022
A Forgotten Prophesy of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli
T
The Sacrament Of Confession
St. Francis told his brothers that the reason we don't all become saints is not because we cannot overcome sin but because we are unwilling to overcome shame through the Sacrament of Confession.
T
The Rays Of The Sun
You are a ray of God's light. A ray of light doesn't seek the sun, it's coming from the sun. A branch doesn't seek the vine, it's already a part of the vine. A wave doesn't look for the ocean, it's already full of ocean. In the secular world we call this our career. In the monastic terms we call this our vocation.
T
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
The Franciscan Lay Apostolate (F.L.A.)
Not everyone should join the Franciscan Lay Apostolate. Only those who want to be free to be what you want to be in your own heart.
T
Joy That Flows Like A Fine Wine
Many Franciscans speak of peace being the opposite of war. Francis spoke of peace in our hearts, a deep satisfaction and joy that flows from within like a fine wine. Only when God raises up an army of peace-loving beggars that outnumber the forces of hatred and violence, will we have peace on earth.
T
Monday, April 25, 2022
You're Crazy!
A time is coming when people will go insane. And when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack that person saying, "You are crazy, you aren't like us." ~ Abba Antony
T
Sunday, April 24, 2022
The Childhood of Christ by Gerard van Honthost circa 1620
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Worthless Distractions
The way of Christian prayer is the way of liberation. Part of the reason for this liberation is that all sorts of worthless distractions are withdrawn. What was once deep distraction keeping us from the things we need, we begin to discover our true selves.
T
Sunday, April 17, 2022
How Bright The Sun Is When You've Been In Darkness All Your Life!
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Holy Thursday
Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, so also our own wounds, failure, disgrace, even death itself, all have a hidden potential for revealing our deepest grounding in God; our wounds bear the perfumed trace of divine presence...Or we can choose self-pity which does no one any good.
T
Friday, April 15, 2022
Good Friday: "Pain Is God's Megaphone!"
T
Thursday, April 14, 2022
The Doorway Into The Silent Land Is A Wound
The doorway into the silent land is a wound. Silence lays bare that wound. We do not journey far along the spiritual path before we get some sense of the wound of the human condition, and this is precisely why most people abandon contemplation as soon as it begins to expose this wound; they move instead to some form of spiritual entertainment that will maintain distraction or hide us from our woundedness.
T
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
How Do I Give Glory To God?
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. Likewise, I give glory to God by being who I am. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of my discovering who I am and by discovering my true self. Not to accept and love and do God's will is to refuse the fullness of my existence.
T
PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Make me an instrument of your PEACE.
Where there is hatred, let me sow LOVE.
Where there is injury, PARDON.
Where there is doubt, FAITH.
Where there is despair, HOPE.
Where there is darkness, LIGHT.
And where there is sadness, JOY.
O DIVINE MASTER
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to CONSOLE.
To be understood, as to UNDERSTAND.
To be loved as to LOVE.
For it is in GIVING that we receive,
It is in PARDONING
That we are pardoned.
And it is in dying
That we are born to ETERNAL LIFE.
T
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
What Have We Franciscans Become?
Who are we Franciscans now? What have we Franciscans become? One giant shrine of stones hidden behind the walls of Assisi, Pogio Bustone, Fonte Colombo and Greccio? Is that all we are now? Where are the beggars in cords? Where are the beggars in patched habits?
T
Self-Centered Prayer
True prayer demands that I be totally honest with myself because it is only the real me who can talk with God. If, for example, I feel the need to be "worthy" or "perfect" or "holy" before I am allowed to pray, then I will most likely never pray at all, or if I do, it will be a fake, self-aggrandizing, self centered me talking to myself rather than with God.
T
Monday, April 11, 2022
Have You Ever Heard A Tree Grow?
Have you ever heard a tree grow? Have you ever heard grass grow? I haven't. Have you ever stretched out across the ground at midnight and stared up at the moon and the stars? We do this every clear night at the Portiuncula. Tell me, what sound do the stars make as they move across the sky? NONE! Complete silence! No wonder our seraphic father, Saint Francis, loved nature so completely. This is how nature taught him to pray: in S-I-L-E-N-C-E!
T
You Don't Know Me
If I say I love you and then begin to tell you about all those things I love about you and you say, "Well, you don't know anything about me then. You don't really know me!" Can the same thing be said about our love for Jesus Christ? In order know the true Jesus Christ and to fall in love with the reality of what and who He truly is, we must first divest ourselves of any pre-conceived notions we have of Him. We discover who Jesus really is by letting go of what we think Jesus is and allow Him to show us who He is.
T
Saturday, April 09, 2022
The Portiuncula Is a Place Of Spiritual Revolution
The Portiuncula is a place of spiritual revolution, not of personal retreat. It is a place of deep encounter, not of superficial escape. It is a place of repentance, not recuperation.
T
Thursday, April 07, 2022
Consumerism Consumes The Consumer.
10 Reasons Why You Should Pray The Rosary In Latin
Tuesday, April 05, 2022
Saturday, April 02, 2022
Spiritual And Not Religious?
In an age when people claim to be "spiritual, not religious ," they really don't have a clue what either term means and their lack of motivation is quite common. We must long for truth, freedom, loving communion with the silent depths of God (like the depths of the ocean).
T
Friday, April 01, 2022
Prayers Of Thanks
It is with grateful hearts that Karen and I thank the members of the Monroe County Catholic Community for the prayers said for our Grandson, Luke Pulskamp. As you know, he was diagnosed with an extremely rare childhood skin cancer. Surgery removed the cancer and it was sent away for further testing. The tests came back benign (noncancerous). He will not have to undergo chemo nor radiation, only periodic check-ups. “Prayer is the best weapon we have, it’s the key to Gods heart.” Saint Padre Pio, and my brothers & sisters of the Monroe County Catholic Churches have proven that to be a fact. May God continue to bless each and everyone of you!
Chris & Karen Dickson Number 6:24-26