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We've also been working behind the scenes to streamline pages so you can download faster, from the Port of Entry page at the main URL to the various categories such as Home Port Page where you can see the total scope of what the DAILY CATHOLIC pages offer in quick loading portholes as well as text links to all pages. We've added a special page for the various Webrings we offer as well as special sites of interest; a special page for those requesting permission to reprint or copy material found in these pages which we call "Rites of Copy"; and a special page where you can view the Ship Logs which list the number of passengers who have booked passage on the DAILY CATHOLIC for the previous day and through the month, year and previous year, as well as total visits since we inaugurated the DAILY CATHOLIC on All Saints Day in 1997 after two years on-line with the bi-weekly "A Call To Peace" - the same publication we published in print dating back to 1990. We will soon be adding a special page to aid the reader in navigating through these daily pages and giving instructions how you can place the DAILY CATHOLIC on your desktop for faster retrieval each day. In addition, we provide various religious news services through our ticker page. We are also endeavoring to make it easier for retrieval of past articles for all. While we do not have the financial means to acquire a sufficient search engine that could contain all the information for fast retrieval via search by word, we have been working on listing all past articles by feature or columnist; thus all editorials would be listed on a special page with subject matter that you can review - the same for Sister Lucy and Pat Ludwa's columns, and our three on-going megaseries as well and other articles as we gain the time to complete these archive listings.
Many have also asked about an abridged version of THE HISTORY OF THE MASS AND HOLY MOTHER CHURCH called The New Sacrifice which we will begin carrying sometime after Easter. Since the meditative lessons of the Rosary have proven so popular during Lent with "It is Consummated!" we have decided to keep them going after Easter with the meditative lessons of the Glorious Mysteries taken from the book "My Lord and my God!" up until Pentecost. In keeping with the Jubilee 2000 spirit we're also going to introduce another feature on the Monday immediately following Pentecost Sunday with our 100th issue for the year. That will be the Countdown of the 100 most influential Catholics of this Century. It's a list we are now compiling and we'd like your input into this since the DAILY CATHOLIC is your paper and we'll publish what you would like to see as long as it is still in accord with all the Church teaches and coincides with our evangelization mission of this apostolate. So over the next sixty days we are opening up the voting to you the reader. You may submit whoever you like and a brief background on the person - his or her accomplishments - as well as a brief sentence on why this person deserves to be listed. We also ask that you give us your top pick, the number one most influential Catholic of this century. There are many who come to mind - Pope John Paul II, Pope Saint Pius X, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, etc. The top ten should be relatively easy, but it's the other ninety that should be interesting and we want to hear your opinions. You can e-mail your submissions to Vote for the Top 100 Catholics of the Twentieth Century or mail your submissions to the DAILY CATHOLIC, 1585 Green Oak Road, Vista, CA 92083. We will begin with the 100th pick on Monday, May 24th, the 99th pick on Tuesday, May 25th and so on down the line as we countdown to the top Catholics of the Twentieth Century.
These are just a few of the projects planned at the DAILY CATHOLIC as we strive to be on the cutting edge of the Church today while never forgetting our roots which stem deep over 2000 years. After nearly two and a half years on-line we remain the only regular English-speaking Monday through Friday publication for Catholics anywhere in existence! Having labored with love in publishing 350 daily issues to date, we can see why no one else has taken on such a formidable enterprise. Without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the guidance of Our Lady and the encouragement of so many readers this effort might well have fizzled out by now. But because of those plusses, the DAILY CATHOLIC is growing stronger and more well-known every day. Each day we get more e-mails from folks informing us that they have just discovered us. With no budget for advertising, we have been able to grow through word-of-mouth advertising and we again appeal to you to tell your parish friends and pastor about this publication and how they can receive it daily. Also, we make a humble appeal that if you can afford a few dollars to help this cause out, we would be most, most grateful. You can submit a love offering to this bonafide ministry via credit card at Donation Page or send a check or your credit card number to the DAILY CATHOLIC's address listed above in this commentary. Any little bit helps for we are in dire, dire need of upgrading equipment since the mainframe computer where this editor hammers out each and every issue is basically running on fumes and a prayer...a big prayer!
As you can surmise, many of the events currently happening - including the war in Kosovo - have been foretold by Our Lady to numerous visionaries and messengers the world over. It is no coincidence that just before the bombing commenced the stock market closed at 9666!!! Think about it! We are 280 days and counting away from the Third Millennium. Not a lot of time left as the days fly by and this upcoming Holy Week affords us all an excellent opportunity to take note of our spiritual bank accounts and balance our hearts and souls so that we can gain the maximum interest in the best dividends available - eternal salvation. So while we all contemplate who are the top 100 Catholics of the Twentieth Century let us all remember the bigger picture that it takes more than 100 Catholics to comprise the Mystical Body of Christ - it takes a global village - like one billion Catholics - to make up the Universal Church. And it starts with each one of us taking responsibility for the God-given gift of grace and applying those graces for good. Whether one billion or one - we are all God's gift - not "God's gift to the world" but rather God's precious gift that He has given freely through His Own Passion, Death and Resurrection. Through this gift He has given us the precious gift of our faith. With those kind of benefits we'd be foolish to look a gifthorse in the mouth!
This observation is based on a notable decline in the number of people standing in line to go to confession, as was seen regularly in years past.
This raises a valid question. If many Catholics are not making use of this Sacrament which Jesus gave us to heal us, are they remaining in the state of Sanctifying Grace, which is a requisite for all of us to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion? Or could it be that as we have almost two generations of “young” people, who have been inadequately taught their faith, that so many Catholics do not know that they should NOT be receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion, if they have committed serious (mortal or grave) sin which they have not confessed?
If a person receives Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist while in the state of mortal sin, they commit another mortal sin called a SACRILEGE and actually they are worse off then what they were before receiving Communion.
How can one receive Our Lord into a clean “house” that is not occupied with Divine Life that we call Sanctifying Grace? This is an evil, a sacrilege!
I would like to quote from the same leaflet as last week which enjoys the imprimatur of Archbishop John R. Roach, D.D., former Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. It reads as follows:
St. Paul in First Corinthians expressly warns against this sin when he says: "Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord" (1Corinthians 11:27-29).
Today, when most Catholics do not go to Confession from one end of the year to the next, and when in a sizeable parish it is not unusual for there to be under ten Confessions per week, and yet when it comes time for Communion at Sunday Mass, virtually everyone in attendance receives Communion, it can be presumed that many people - human nature being what it is - are receiving Holy Communion unworthily, i.e., while in the state of mortal sin.
Prior to approximately 1960, it was the norm for practicing Catholics to go to the Sacrament of Confession once a week, or at least once every two or three weeks (whether or not they had a mortal sin to confess), and afterwards to receive Communion on Sunday. Prior to that time, the number of Confessions approximately equalled the number of Communions. About half of a parish would receive Communion on a given Sunday.
Presently, however, there are hardly any Confessions, and the reception of Communion is almost universal. Granted, many of those weekly Confessions in previous years were probably Confessions of venial sins (not mortal sins), and thus they were not strictly necessary before Communion, yet we must admit that mortal sin has become far more commonplace today, and so it would only be a person wearing rose-colored glasses, one who wants to redefine the whole concept of sin, who would say that mortal sin has become so rare that only a handful of parishioners each week have need of Confession before receiving Holy Communion. (That handful who do go to Confession are likely to be the most devout and least sinful members of the whole parish.)
So, dear reader, if you are among those who are receiving sacrilegious Holy Communions, please stop. Go to confession. Receive the healing of Jesus, then receive Him with a clean heart. You’ll be so much happier for doing so.
God bless you!
I am moving, weaving my way in and around people who are beginning to crowd the street; many headed for the Temple. Many vendors, many buyers. In short, all of Jerusalem has begun to move and it is truly a crowded, noisy and dirty city!
As I move I understand from the Mother of God that Our Dear Lord is now before Pilate for the second time. She tells me that all night Jesus has been maltreated. He has been beaten going to and from the Sanhedrin to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and back again to Pilate.
During the eternity of the long passage from dark to day, Jesus was thrown into a prison cell while the Temple guards and Pilate’s Roman guards verbally argued over custody of the prisoner. The Temple guards had demanded their rightful duty under the law to "protect" the prisoner because the Roman governor had not yet made any ruling in the case. And here, in a prison cell, in Herod’s court, these Temple guards abused our Lord and God dreadfully, pulling him this way and that. They yanked out his long hair in places, and even part of His beard. He was knocked against every stair, drug deliberately through every pile of filth, and when thrown headlong into a cell, hit His Sacred Head with such force that, had God not sustained Him, the blow would have killed Him.
The verbal abuse has been continuous and no less cruel to Jesus’ ears which were made only to hear heavenly music. And His garments, once clean and pure, reflect His treatment for it is shredded in places where His sacred body has been pulled across the rough stone streets and down deep stairwells and back up again.
Exhausted in body from His agony at Gethsemane, our Lord has had no rest, and no one has given Him even a sip of water or a dirty rag to wipe His face.
I come into a courtyard where I see many Roman soldiers of varying ranks standing. They are in uniform, but not all wear their full dress uniforms.
Off to my left there is a barracks where most of the soldiers live, and another building that is detached and set off to the back in the stable for the mounted soldiers.
There has gathered a small crowd of people, those citizens of Jerusalem who, living elbow-to-elbow with the Romans as they do, know when something is taking place. These people, not unlike many today, spend their time idly watching the justice of Rome being carried o out and then spreading the gory details among all the people.
Although it is an open courtyard and sunlight spills everywhere, except under those porches which lead into the lower regions of Pilate’s court, I shiver, finding it a sinister place.
In a nation, bad blood arises immediately when others are indifferent to our misfortunes. Nothing so spoils a people as a spirit which makes each say, "I am I and you are you, and that's the end of it." Rather, as the poet said:
Of the two kinds of sympathy, it seems easier to show sympathy with people in trouble than to rejoice with happy folk. In Shakespeare's As You Like It, there is a description of two brothers, each in love with his chosen mistress. One succeeds in his courtship, whereupon the other exclaims, "How bitter it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"
Furthermore, it seems to be easier to do one of these than to do both together. Some are more sensitive to pain in others, and others are more sensitive to joy in others. It could be that, feeling the need of sympathy ourselves, we play a sympathetic tune on the keyboard of another; but why, it might be asked, since we all wish joy, not share in another's joy?
It has been said that it becomes easier to do both as we grow older. One of the heroes of Homer sang:
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double. Two torches do not divide, but increase the flame. Tears are more quickly dried up when they run on a friend's cheek in furrows of compassion.
How beautifully both these sympathies were revealed in the character of Our Blessed Lord when He saw the leper, the widow of Naim, the blind man by the wayside, the hungry multitudes distressed "as sheep without a shepherd." He touched the leper; He dried the tears of the widow; He was hungry with the hungry and He fed them. He suffered with their suffering. One day a publican made a great feast in his house. Our Lord sat down with His disciples, saying that while the Bridegroom was with them, they should all rejoice. He also entered sympathetically into the joys of the marriage feast of Cana, making better wine even when the poor wine had been drained.
Few there are who can carry this sympathy to a point of forgiveness as Our Lord did from the Cross; as St. Thomas More, Chancellor of England, did when he gave a blessing to his persecutors. Just before being killed, he was asked if he had anything to say. His answer was, "My lords, I have but to say that as the blessed Apostle St. Paul was present at the death of the martyr, Stephen, keeping the clothes of those who stoned him, and yet they be now saints in Heaven, and there shall continue to be friends forever, so I trust and shall, therefore, pray, that through your lordships have been on earth my judges, yet we may hereafter meet in Heaven together to our everlasting salvation: and God preserve you all, especially our sovereign lord, the king, and grant him faithful counsellors."
