No Fast Today

I will praise God's name with a song; I will glorify him with thanksgiving,

A gift pleasing God more than oxen, more than beasts prepared for sacrifice.

(Psalm 69:30-31)
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A bell tower. A church. I know it well. I loved its cool stones.

High on a hill. "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt. 5:14)

Still standing. But no longer a church.

"For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build, and was not able to finish.'" (Luke 14:28-30)

"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" --Ps. 11

"...you must inevitably rejoice, you must spurn the tortures of the moment for joy at what is to be; you know that it was so ordered from the beginning of the universe that here righteousness should struggle and wrestle in this world, for at the very beginning the righteous man Abel was slain and thereafter all those righteous men have been slain, both the prophets and the Apostles whom He sent forth." --St. Cyprian of Carthage (martyred 258 A.D.)

Fast and pray, now more than ever.

All Saints' Day

Jacob Epstein's Michael the Archangel--Photo by duncan on flickr.com

"I, John, saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God." (Rev. 7:2)

                                                                                              --from the readings for the Mass  

                                                                                 

Remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.

They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires."  These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Letter of St. Jude, v. 17-20. His symbol is the ship, for his missionary activities. His feast day is October 28.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."  --Matthew 7:7

"...let him ask of God, that giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith."    --James 1:6

 Ask. And if you need faith, ask for that too.

Happy Saint Francis' Day!

"Religious and social cranks of all sorts have appealed to him for justification, and he has completely won the hearts of the sentimental. But the idylls that are associated with his name--the marriage with Lady Poverty, the listening birds, [etc.]...were only, so to speak, the 'trimmings' of a character which was wholly imbued with the spiritual, inspired by Christian dogma, and devoted not simply to Christ but to the crucified Christ." (Butler's Lives of the Saints)




Francis re-building (literally) the church.