8 Sunday - Another Reflection - Tenderness of Love

By Monsignor Francesco Follo

PARIS, February 28, 2014 (Zenit.org) - 1) Faith[1] overcomes concern[2]

      This Sunday’s liturgy presents as the first reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah, who assures us that God does not forget us, and as Gospel a passage from the Sermon on the Mountain in which Jesus invites us not to trust in riches called mammon[3], but in the provident God who takes care of creation and of the creature par excellence: man.
      The risk denounced by Jesus is to trust in the power of money to secure life, maybe holding the foot in both camps. This attitude denotes an ambiguous life, conducted without full commitment to God and unconditional dedication to his service which is for life, while the service to material things is a finite answer to our desire for the infinite. It is important that Jesus illustrates the choice between God and wealth using the verb to serve. In fact if we do not use money wisely and evangelically, there is a serious and certain risk to become the servants of money, concerned only to accumulate it impoverishing for this reason our personal relationships, including that one with God. We have in this verse (Mt 6, 24), a variation on the theme of the blessedness of the poor (cf. Mt 5:3) that the text that follows declines in a new way in line with the trust in the providence of God. In fact, in Matthew 6: 26 and the following passages, Jesus describes the garden of the world and invites us to look at the world with eyes of faith. By faith we see in action the concern of the Father for everything: He takes care of everything even the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky and, more importantly, He is provident to men, beloved children made ​​in his image.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Reflection: What It Means to Be Human

by Mark D. Roberts

Ezekiel 2:1-10

The voice said to me: Human one, stand on your feet, and I’ll speak to you.

In the Common English Bible, the Lord addresses Ezekiel as “Human one.” Most English translations prefer the traditional “Son of man” instead of “Human one.” This is a more literal rendering of the Hebrew ben-adam. But the CEB rightly represents the sense of the Hebrew phrase. “Son of man” in this context means “human being” or “human one.” The Lord is not giving Ezekiel some special title, but addressing him in his humanness.

8 Sunday A - Don't Worry about Tomorrow - Homilies

Fr. Bill Grimm's Video Message at the bottom
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Opening Story:

When I hear Jesus tell us to trust God, I think of the German philosopher and Carmelite contemplative, Edith Stein. Brought up in a pious Jewish household at the end of the nineteenth century, as a young woman she stopped believing in God. A brilliant mind, Edith excelled in philosophy. One evening she picked up a book by St. Therese of Lisieux. She spent the entire night reading it and in the morning she believed not only in God, but in Jesus and his Church. It was not a passing emotion. At great personal cost she became a Catholic.

When the Nazi persecution of Jews began, she could have gone to America, as did most of her family. Edith, however, felt called to become a Carmelite Sister - like St. Therese. She eventually wound up in a convent in Holland. When the Nazis took over that country in 1940, they registered all Jews, including those who had become Christians. In July of 1942, the Dutch bishops protested the persecution of Jews - and on July 20, they had a letter read from all Catholic pulpits.

It's official - stress DOES cause headaches

And the pain then causes us to become even more stressed

• There was a 'clear link' between the amount of stress people's lives and how often they experienced a headache, say German researchers
• Those most seriously affected had a 6% rise in ‘headache days’
• Around 30.4 million Britons - three out of four adults - claim to have suffered from headaches or migraines in the past six months

By Jenny Hope Medical Correspondent

Feel a headache coming on? You could be under stress, say researchers.
A new study proves what most headache had suspected - that having more stress in your life leads to more headaches.
There was a 'clear link' between the amount of stress people's lives and how often they experienced a headache.

Malappuram gynaecologist set to deliver a Guinness record

DC | Jose Kurian | 

Laila Begum

Kozhikode: Once while patrolling the streets during the wee hours, the Chemmad police saw a man ‘chasing’ a woman on the highway. After a stiff tussle, the team succeeded in holding back the man.
But to the embarrassment of the ‘heroes’, the woman started running back scolding the police. And she turned out to be Dr Laila Begum, a gynaecologist, who was rushing to the hospital followed by her aide to attend an emergency as her personal driver had failed to turn up.

Enemies - Stories

ENEMIES

Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes. 
Antisthenes.

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Rabbi David A. Nelson likes to tell the story of two brothers who went to their rabbi to settle a longstanding feud. The rabbi got the two to reconcile their differences and shake hands. As they were about to leave, he asked each one to make a wish for the other in honor of the Jewish New Year. The first brother turned to the other and said, "I wish you what you wish me." At that, the second brother threw up his hands and said, "See, Rabbi, he's starting up again!"
David A. Nelson.

7 Sunday A - Be Holy, Be Perfect - Homilies

Note: Fr Bill Grimm's Video Message at the Bottom

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 “He couldn't fight, either.”  
One day a truck driver stopped at a restaurant for dinner and ordered a steak. Before he could eat it, in walked a motorcycle gang, with dirty leather jackets and long, unkempt hair. They took the man's steak, cut it into six pieces, and ate it. The driver said nothing. He simply paid the bill and walked out. One of the gang members said, "That man couldn't talk. He didn't say a word." Another one said, "He couldn't fight, either; he didn't lift a hand." A waiter added, "I would say that he couldn't drive either. On his way out of the parking lot, he ran over six motorcycles crushing all of them." Something in us loves that story, because we like retaliation. But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus prescribes forgiving love as the Christian trump card.

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 Thomas O’Loughlin
Introduction to the Celebration

Friends in Christ, we — as the community of the baptised — are called by God to provide the world with an example of a different way of living life. Around us we hear every day of people waging war or getting ready to wage war or waging war to make peace or waging war to prevent war. We often hear the same language in our businesses and in our workplaces. The motto seems to be: grab, grasp, exploit. But we are called to wage peace. We are called not just to be peaceful, but to actively work in a way that builds up peace, honesty, respect for other and the creation. To say we are Christians is to say that we have volunteered to wage peace in our homes, in our work, and in our world.

Why boys need strict Fathers...Humour

6 Sunday A - Spirit of the Law

Thomas O’Loughlin
Introduction to the Celebration

The word ‘religion’ conjures up for most people, and indeed us Christians also, two great images. The first is that system of moral ‘do-s and don’t-s’ — and that we have image is true whether one thinks such rules are a good thing. The second is that there are various religious that have to be followed: like the rule that we have to go on Sundays. But the message of Jesus, brought out in gospel, is that we must go beyond these appearances: our actions must be following but must be inspired love; our religious observances cannot be merely formal must open us to mystery of love that is greater that the univ yet which enters every detail of the creation.

Shape-bending designs of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava on display at the Vatican-Video