The days go by and by
you ignore the constant words that call for help, when I most need you, you go somewhere peaceful and I can never find my peace.
In the dark I hide all my feelings, in my dreams I run away for a while, with a merciful soul I rest, I gain the strenght to come back,
with love I look in your face, my feelings of madness fade away for a moment,
How can I gain my peace back?
Have I forgotten my prayers?
Have I forgotten to breathe?
Angelica C
This weather…
It brings me to a numb mental state, it reminds me of times dreamed but never lived, of a love so pure that was destroyed, of a blackness that stained my soul.
This weather is no good weather to me, it might be refreshing to my body… but it is dangerous to my soul.
September 14: Feast Day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Early in the fourth century St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ’s life. She razed the second-century Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior’s tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher over the tomb. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman.
The cross immediately became an object of veneration. At a Good Friday celebration in Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century, according to an eyewitness, the wood was taken out of its silver container and placed on a table together with the inscription Pilate ordered placed above Jesus’ head: Then “all the people pass through one by one; all of them bow down, touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and, after kissing the cross, they move on.” To this day the Eastern Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the September anniversary of the basilica’s dedication. The feast entered the Western calendar in the seventh century after Emperor Heraclius recovered the cross from the Persians, who had carried it off in 614, 15 years earlier. According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.
Absolutely a brilliant idea, I just discovered these dolls based on the saints!! I am so happy children out there can be more insterested in God because of these dolls, they will learn about them and hopefully grow closer to them spiritually 🙂 They come with a book so the children can know about them!
dollsfromheaven.com
This is St Therese of Lisieux
An extra outfit, her Sunday best for Mass when she was a child
This is a testimony I found on tumblr =)
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I had many reasons not to be Catholic when I decided to be Catholic. I was baptized Catholic as a baby, but as I got older I didn’t like what the Church taught about Mary, sex, gay marriage, contraception, the pope, and you know, like, all the rest.
I actually stumbled back into the Church very much by accident. After a tiring and determined period of atheism, I went through a series of belief exchanges trying to find “where I fit.” After I realized I was more or less a deist, I quickly realized I didn’t believe deism made sense. I couldn’t fathom a created world not crumbling apart from the care and attention of its first cause. I examined Islam, Judaism, various sects of Protestantism, and eventually came to my own set of personal beliefs about God and the world. I wanted to be anything but Catholic. I wanted to believe in freedom and love and compassion, which was not Catholicism (or so I thought).
It was around this time that I happened across the Catechism of the Catholic Church I received as part of my Confirmation process in high school. Here was my chance, I thought, to get a sneak peak into what the Church taught so I could be more equipped to refute it and more ready to defend myself from its oppressive tyranny.
And instead, I was floored. This was poetry. This was beauty. This was intellectual. This was true. I found that Catholicism had all the answers to all the questions of my mind. But, I won’t get too carried away with that story. That is why I chose to be Catholic. But, it is not why I stay Catholic.
Because, most importantly, Catholicism has all the answers to my heart’s aching, burning questions. I stay Catholic for one primary reason: Jesus Christ, the God of the universe and Lord of heaven and earth, through whom I exist and in whom I live and move and have my being, wants to be one flesh with me. I have a deep yearning thirst for unshaking, eternal love. And I find that in the Eucharist.k
In many ways, I am a different person than I was three, four, five years ago. Still in many ways, though, I am very much the same. I am fickle. I am irritable. I lack patience and humility. I care deeply for humanity, and I am regularly disappointed and devastated by the lack of compassion displayed by those who claim Christ as their Lord.
Every now and then, I grow weary. I get run down. I suck. People suck. Sometimes I even ask myself why I stay Catholic.
And the answer is always just a short drive away, waiting for me in the perpetual Adoration chapel.
The Eucharist is the source of my hope, life, joy, peace, and the very meaning of my life. I stay Catholic because, if I lost the Eucharist, I would lose everything that makes my life livable. I stay Catholic because I believe this radical love story is true. God became my sustainence. He became my nourishment. He became food and drink for me. Out of love. Because He wants such a radically close intimacy with me that He dwells within me not only spiritually but physically.
I stay Catholic because this Eucharistic love enriches my life in such a powerful way that my life would be over if it were ever taken from me.
As I mentioned earlier, I received a Catechism during my Confirmation preparation. But, at my Confirmation, I received graces that would enrich my life as soon as I was willing to receive them several years later. And by the grace of God, at my confirmation, I took Peter as my Confirmation name.
And like Peter, if even the world walked away from the gift of the Eucharist, my heart, though perhaps confused and exhausted, would beat to an unchanging rhythm: Master, to whom else can I go?”
How many times have I heard “Jesus was speaking symbolically when he said to eat his body and drink his blood”, The issue on the Eucharist is what mainly separates Protestants from Catholics, so it should be of most importance to meditate on the theology behind this.. let’s take a look:
John 6:30 begins a colloquy that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. The Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they might believe in him. As a challenge, they noted that “our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. “Give us this bread always,” they said. Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.
Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: “‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” (John 6:51–52).
His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56).
Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct “misunderstandings,” for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had, if they mistook what he said, why no correction?
On other occasions when there was confusion, Christ explained just what he meant (cf. Matt. 16:5–12). Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, there was no effort by Jesus to correct. Instead, he repeated himself for greater emphasis.
In John 6:60 we read: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” These were his disciples, people used to his remarkable ways. He warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63; cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–14).
But he knew some did not believe. (It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64.) “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66).
This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t he call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically.
But he did not correct these protesters. Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have “to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper—and it was a promise that could not be more explicit.
He continues: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (John 6:57). The Greek word used for “eats” (trogon) is very blunt and has the sense of “chewing” or “gnawing.” This is not the language of metaphor.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). “To answer for the body and blood” of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine “unworthily” be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.
Not everything is lost when I am with you,
I crave your love, like my need to breathe, only if only all of my senses could acknowledge you… I know I would be different,
Love of my life, my friend, my beloved, my Lord,
can you forgive such offenses?,
like a bride without her groom I am,
I don’t feel you, I don’t see you, oh forgive me and my ways, like a miserable harlot I am… constantly rebelling and forgetting her beloved, whom she mistakenly believes is far away…
But Lord when I come to you, when you listen to me and forgive my sins against you, it is then I wish to die, because death is not death, but life eternal by your side…
Oh love of my life… my King, my fountain of love and mercy, do not let me die while I am away… call me to you, day and night, and when the day comes, take pity on this miserable woman, because she loves you, but she does not know how.
mysoulasis 