Established July 4, 1926
Search
-
Test Your Faith IIIThe final test for you is in regard to church history. Match the events to the year it occurred. Good luck!
- Martyrdom of Joan of Arc
- Birth of St. Francis of Assisi
- Nicene Creed affirmed
- St. Patrick becomes bishop
- Charlemagne crowned
- St. Paul martyred
- First World Youth Day
- First formal canonization
- Papal infallibility declared
- Pope John Paul II elected
- 432
- 1993
- 993
- 1870
- 1182
- 1431
- 381
- 64
- 800
- 1978
Score:
10/10 – Perfect, you’re the next pope!
8/10 – Good
6/10 – Okay
4/10 – Poor
2/10 – Back to CCD grade one!
Test Your Faith II
The following are the answers from last week:
- St. Joseph – Fathers of the Family(i)
- St. Cecilia – Musicians (h)
- St. Agatha – Nurses (c)
- St. Denis – Headaches (f)
- St. Sebastian – Athletes (j)
- St. Martha – Restaurants (l)
- St. Christopher – Truck Drivers (b)
- St. Mary Magdalene – Hair Dressers (g)
- St. Valentine – Lovers (e)
- St. Matthew – Accountant (a)
- St. Jerome – Scholars (k)
- St. Luke – Brewers (d)
A Saint is “someone who has been transformed by the grace of Christ, and who resides in full union with God in heaven.” (The Catholic Faith Handbook, page 424) As Catholics, we also believe in patron saints and their causes.
Take the challenge listed below. Match the patron saint with the proper cause. Answers next week!- St. Joseph
- St. Cecilia
- St. Agatha
- St. Denis
- St. Sebastian
- St. Martha
- St. Christopher
- St. Mary Magdalene
- St. Valentine
- St. Matthew
- St. Jerome
- St. Luke
- Accountant
- Truck drivers
- Nurses
- Brewers
- Lovers
- Headaches
- Hair Dressers
- Musicians
- Fathers of Families
- Athletes
- Scholars
- Restaurants
-
8th Commandment
“You Shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Ex. 20:16)
This commandment “forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others.” (Catechism #2464)
In Sacred Scripture, in the Old as well as in the New Testament, “truth is a highly valued virtue. To speak the “truth” is to be in union with God – the source of all truth. Moreover, our Lord Jesus told His disciples, the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32)
St. Thomas the Aquinas stated, “Men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another.” (Catechism #2469)
When there is an absence of truthfulness an offense against the eighth commandment has occurred. Please consider the following ways we sin against this commandment:
- False witness – a public lie
- Perjury – lying under oath
- Rash judgment - judging a person without sufficient evidence
- Detraction - disclosing another’s faults without sufficient reason
- Calumny – lying about another while destroying another’s reputation
- Compliance – praising the sinful acts of another
- Boasting – to the point of lying
- Gossiping!
If you have a moment, prayerfully read in the Book of Wisdom, chapter seven, verses twenty-five through thirty!
-
The Fourth Commandment
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Ex.20:13)
“God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God. (Catechism #2197)
“The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their mother and father, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude towards elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and those who administer or govern it.
This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.
Catechism #2199)
· Children must obey their parents in all things except sin.
· Children are obligated to help their parents in their old age, or when they are sick and helpless, and pray for them.
· Children must honor and obey others in authority while they are under their care, due to respect for their parents.
Are you good to your parents? -
First Commandment
“I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me.”
Each of us ought to render to God the following: Adoration, Prayer, Sacrifice
Moreover, we are forbidden to honor gods other that the one Lord God. Sins against this commandment include:
Superstition - when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary.
Idolatry - believing in a venerating other divinities. This could be power, pleasure, money, etc.
Divination - recourse to Satan or demons conjuring up the dead, consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, recourse to mediums.
The practice of atheism and agnosticism are also in discord with this commandment. Basically, atheism in rejection or denial of the existence of God, but God is incapable of revealing Himself, so nothing can be said about Him.
God is good! We are blessed by the goodness of God. Let us always, everywhere and abundantly give our God the glory, praise and honor He deserves!
-
Purgatory!
Does that place still exist? Please read and reflect on the following official teaching from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is extremely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory, especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire, (I Cor.3:15 and I Pt.1:7)
This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture (2Mac.12:46). From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage of them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.”
-
Mother's Day
The idea of celebrating a day to honor mothers, is not quite a century old.
It originated from the efforts of a devoted Christian daughter who believed that grown children, preoccupied with their own families, too often neglect their mothers. That daughter was Anna Jarvis, a West Virginia School Teacher. Her mother had died on May 9, 1902. Anna was grief stricken. Six years, thereafter, she wrote to the pastor of her local church and asked if a “Mother’s Day” celebration could occur for all mothers in the congregation. The pastor agreed!
So on May 10, 1908 the first Mother’s Day service was held, attended by 407 children and their mothers! Only six years later on May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day in our nation.
Fr. Marc -
Clergy Appointment
Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney has announced the following clergy appointment,
effective on May 1st, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker:
Rev, Marc A. Mancini to Judicial Vicar of the diocesan Tribunal,
while remaining as pastor of St. James of the Marches Parish in Totowa.