Hellen Keller was born June 27, 1880. Though she later became famous as a deaf and blind activist, she was not born deaf or blind. Instead, when she was about a year and a half old, she contracted a disease (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) that left her deaf and blind. She became a world famous author and advocate for people with these conditions. I have no idea if she ever actually played pinball, but I’m sure she would have been good at that, too. LEARN MORE.
Month: June 2012
The Church Year: June 26, 2012
Today is Tuesday of the 12th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost, and the liturgical color for today is red.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 26, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St.s John and Paul, martyred at Rome, who died in A.D. 362. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St.s John and Paul, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation:
26. Human experience shows that the position and demeanor of the body also have their influence on the recollection and dispositions of the spirit. This is a fact to which some eastern and western Christian spiritual writers have directed their attention.
Their reflections, while presenting points in common with eastern non-Christian methods of meditation, avoid the exaggerations and partiality of the latter, which, however, are often recommended to people today who are not sufficiently prepared.
The spiritual authors have adopted those elements which make recollection in prayer easier, at the same time recognizing their relative value: they are useful if reformulated in accordance with the aim of Christian prayer.30 For example, the Christian fast signifies, above all, an exercise of penitence and sacrifice; but, already for the Fathers, it also had the aim of rendering man more open to the encounter with God and making a Christian more capable of self-dominion and at the same time more attentive to those in need.
In prayer it is the whole man who must enter into relation with God, and so his body should also take up the position most suited to recollection.31 Such a position can in a symbolic way express the prayer itself, depending on cultures and personal sensibilities. In some aspects, Christians are today becoming more conscious of how one’s bodily posture can aid prayer.
He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
Did You Know? According to legend, in 1284, while the town of Hamelin, Germany was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied (multicolored) clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge. On St. John and Paul’s Day (June 26) while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. The moral of the story: Always pay your debts. Or never enrage the exterminator. Or use the cats of Ulthar instead. Something like that. LEARN MORE.
Science: People Who Believe in Heaven More Likely to Commit Crime?
That seems to be the implication of this story by CBS News, which is headlined:
Study Finds People Who Believe In Heaven Commit More Crimes
I guess we should all stop believing in heaven in order to have a more orderly society.
Okay. Let’s phone the Pope and give him the bad news, tell him he can start closing churches and winding down that whole new evangelization thing.
It seems the whole 2,000 year experiment has produced undesirable results, and it’s time to close up shop.
Or . . . wait.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s another possibility.
The Church Year: June 25, 2012
Today is Monday of the 12th week of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is green.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost, and the liturgical color for today is white.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 25, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.
In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. William, abbot, who died in A.D. 1142. It is a Class III day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. William, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation:
25. With regard to mysticism, one has to distinguish between the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the charisms granted by God in a totally gratuitous way. The former are something which every Christian can quicken in himself by his zeal for the life of faith, hope and charity; and thus, by means of a serious ascetical struggle, he can reach a certain experience of God and of the contents of the faith. As for charisms, St. Paul says that these are, above all, for the benefit of the Church, of the other members of the Mystical Body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:17). With this in mind, it should be remembered that charisms are not the same things as extraordinary (“mystical”) gifts (cf. Rom 12:3-21), and that the distinction between the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” and “charisms” can be flexible. It is certain that a charism which bears fruit for the Church, cannot, in the context of the New Testament, be exercised without a certain degree of personal perfection, and that, on the other hand, every “living” Christian has a specific task (and in this sense a “charism”) “for the building up of the body of Christ” (cf. Eph 4:15-16),29 in communion with the Hierarchy whose job it is “not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good” (LG, n. 12).
That’s a Bear of a Different Color
Did You Know? There was a bear in a zoo in Medoza City, Argentina that contracted a skin condition. Zoo officials tried treating the skin condition, and in the process the bear turned purple! (Temporarily, at least.) It looked much better than the algae-stained green bears, FWIW. (Also, check out the video of polar bears playing with sled dogs!) LEARN MORE.
The Weekly Benedict: 24 Jun, 2012
This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 3 May – 21 June 2012 (subscribe here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):
Angelus
General Audience
Letters
Messages
- June 17, 2012 – Message for the closing of the Fiftieth International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin
Speeches
- 2 June 2012 – Meeting with the candidates for confirmation at “Meazza” Stadium in San Siro, Milan
- 9 June 2012 – To Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands on their ad Limina Apostolorum visit
- 11 June 2012 – To participants in the the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome: Lectio divina
- 21 June 2012 – To participants in the Assembly of the “Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches”
The Church Year: June 24, 2012
Today is the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The liturgical color is white.
In the Extraordinary Form, this is the season after Pentecost.
In the Extraordinary Form, it is the 4th Sunday after Pentecost.
Saints & Celebrations:
On June 24, in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. In the Ordinary Form, it is a solemnity, and in the Extraordinary Form, it is a Class I day.
If you’d like to learn more about St. John the Baptist, you can click here.
For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.
Readings:
To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.
Or you can click play to listen to them:
Devotional Information:
According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:
225. The devotion of St. John the Baptist has been present in the Christian Church since ancient time. From a very early date, it acquired popular forms and connotations. In addition to the celebration of his death (29 August), of all the Saints he is the only one whose birth is also celebrated (24 June) – as with Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In virtue of having baptized Jesus in the Jordan, many baptisteries are dedicated to him and his image as “baptizer” is to found close to many baptismal founts. He is the patron Saint of those condemned to death or who have been imprisoned for the witness to the faith, in virtue of the harsh prison which he endured and of the death which he encountered.
In all probability, the date of John the Baptists’ birth (24 June) was fixed in relation to that of Christ (25 December): according to what was said by the Angel Gabriel, when Mary conceived Our Savior, Elizabeth had already been with child for six months (cf Lk 1, 26.36). The date of 24 June is also linked to the solar cycle of the Northern hemisphere. The feast is celebrated as the Sun, turning towards the South of the zodiac, begins to decline: a phenomenon that was taken to symbolize John the Baptist who said in relation to Jesus: “illum oportet crescere, me autem minui” (John 3, 30).
John’s mission of witnessing to the light (cf John 1, 7) lies at the origin of the custom of blessing bonfires on St John’s Eve – or at least gave a Christian significance to the practice. The Church blesses such fires, praying God that the faithful may overcome the darkness of the world and reach the “indefectible light” of God.
First “Flying Saucer” Sighting
Did You Know? Aviator Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a group of fast-flying objects in Washington State on June 24, 1947. He compared their motion to that of saucers being skipped across water. Though he did *not* say they were *shaped* like saucers (actually, he said they *weren’t*), his account led to the term “flying saucer.” LEARN MORE.
“To Be Absent from the Body Is to be Present with the Lord”?
There is a common argument used against the idea of purgatory in some circles which goes like this: “St. Paul says that ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:8). It’s that simple: If you’re a Christian and you aren’t in your body then you are with Jesus in heaven. There is no room for purgatory in St. Paul’s view. Purgatory is just a Catholic fable–a ‘man made tradition.'”
Is this true?
It turns out that if you examine what St. Paul really said, the whole argument is based on a misquotation. St. Paul said nothing of the kind.
Furthermore, if you look elsewhere in St. Paul’s writings–to the very same church he was addressing in his “absent from the body” passage–you find strong evidence for purgatory.
Far from being a Catholic fable, purgatory is rooted in the thought of the Apostle Paul himself–as I show in the following video.
I’ve also been working on a special mailing for the Secret Information Club where I “interview” John Paul II on the subject of purgatory. In the interview, I pose questions, and the answers are taken from his writing. Current Secret Club members will get it automatically.
Purgatory is a controversial subject that Catholics are often attacked over, so if you’d like to receive the special interview with John Paul II on purgatory, just sign up for the Secret Information Club by Friday, June 29th, and you’ll have it in your inbox on Saturday morning.
You should sign up using this handy sign up form:
If you have any difficulty, just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com.
If you’re reading this by email, click here to view the video.
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