Feast of St. Francis

From The Office of Readings

A Letter from St. Francis of Assisi to all the faithful:

It was through his archangel, Saint Gabriel, that the Father above made known to the holy and glorious Virgin Mary that the worthy, holy and glorious Word of the Father would come from heaven and take from her womb the real flesh of our human frailty. Though he was wealthy beyond reckoning, he still willingly chose to be poor with his blessed mother. And shortly before his passion he celebrated the Passover with his disciples. Then he prayed to his Father saying: Father, if it be possible, let this cup be taken from me.
Nevertheless, he reposed his will in the will of his Father. The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins. It was intended to leave us an example of how to follow in his footsteps. And he desires all of us to be saved through him, and to receive him with pure heart and chaste body.
O how happy and blessed are those who love the Lord and do as the Lord himself said in the gospel: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul; and your neighbour as yourself. Therefore, let us love God and adore him with pure heart and mind. This is his particular desire when he says: True worshippers adore the Father in spirit and truth. For all who adore him must do so in the spirit of truth. Let us also direct to him our praises and prayers saying: Our Father, who art in heaven, since we must always pray and never grow slack.
Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbours as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Deacon Testifies Priest Confessed Murders to Him

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but why didn't the Deacon go to the authorities both civil and ecclesial with this information?

From MPR: Judge rules priest 'probably' committed Hudson murders:

Deacon Russell Lundgren, from St. Mary's Church in Hurley, testified Monday he
talked to Erickson after police interviewed the priest late last year.
'He tells me that 'I done it and they were going to catch me,'' Lundgren said during
the hearing.
'He was staring out the window. Throughout the whole conversation, we never made eye contact,' Lundgren said.
The priest also told him, 'Do you know what they do with young guys in prison, especially priests?' Lundgren testified.
Lundgren said they never talked about the deaths again.
Erickson, 31, was found hanged Dec. 19 from a fire escape at his parish in Hurley in far northern Wisconsin several days after police questioned him and he denied involvement in the deaths of Dan O'Connell, 39, and intern James Ellison, 22.

Fire Urban Meyer Site Up

Supports the UF coach, someone bought the domain before the fireronzoon guy could...



See fireurbanmeyer.com

Prayer for Success of Synod

From ZENIT News Agency--The World Seen from Rome:

Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father has commanded us to listen as his beloved
Son, shed your light upon your Church, so that she might have nothing more holy
than to listen to your voice and follow you. You are the Supreme Shepherd and
Ruler of Souls. Look then upon the Pastors of your Church gathered in these days
with the Successor of St. Peter in synod assembly. We implore you to sanctify
them in truth and confirm them in faith and love.

Lord Jesus Christ,
send forth your Spirit of love and truth on the bishops in synod and on all who
assist them in fulfilling their task. Make them more faithful to what the Spirit
is saying to the Churches; stir their souls and teach them truth by that same
Holy Spirit. Through their work, may the faithful of their Churches be purified
and strengthened in spirit, so that they might greater follow the Gospel through
which you accomplished salvation and they might make of themselves a living
offering to the heavenly Father.

May Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God
and Mother of the Church, assist the Bishops in these days, as she assisted the
Apostles in the Upper Room, and intercede with motherly affection to foster
brotherly communion among them, to allow them to rejoice in prosperity and peace
in the calmness of these days, and, in reading the signs of the times, to
celebrate the majesty of the merciful God, the Lord of History, to the praise
and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Vatican's Press Office for Synod News

Top Ten Amazon Catholic Bestsellers

As of Sunday morning October 2nd...

I haven't done this for awhile. Several new titles...Arroyo, Greeley,Woods,Groeschel.

1. Mother Angelica : The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles by Raymond Arroyo

2. The Making of the Pope 2005 by Andrew Greeley

3. Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio and Kenneth Brighenti

4. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization By Thomas Woods Jr.

5. The How-To Book of the Mass: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You by Michael Dubruiel

6. The Seeker's Catechism: The Basics of Catholicism : Presented in Light of the New Catechism of the Catholic Church by Michael Pennock

7. Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen

8. Catechism of the Catholic Church

9. There are No Accidents: In All Things Trust in God by Benedict J. Groeschel, John Bishop and Michael Dubruiel

10. Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux by St. Therese

Pope Opens Synod of Bishops

On the Eucharist...

Snipets From Benedict's Opening Homily:

Right in this hour in which we celebrate the Eucharist, in which we launch the Synod of the Eucharist, He comes to meet us, comes to meet me. Will he find a response? Or will the same happen to us as with the vine, of which God told Isaiah: “He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes”? Isn’t our Christian life often more vinegar than wine? Self-pity, conflict, indifference?...

...We want to be masters in the first place and by ourselves. We want to possess the world and our own lives in an unlimited way. God is an encumbrance for us. We either pay devoted lip service to Him or deny Him completely; He is banished from public life, losing all meaning. A tolerance which acknowledges God, as it were, as a private opinion, but which refuses him any public domain, the reality of the world and of our life, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. Where man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist. There only the arbiter of power and of interests can dominate. Certainly, the Son can be chased out of the vineyard and killed, so one can selfishly savour all the fruits of the earth alone. But soon the vineyard will turn into uncultivated terrain trampled by wild boars, as the Responsorial Psalm tells us (cf. Ps 79:14)...

...But the threat of judgement regards us too, the Church in Europe, Europe and the West in general. With this Gospel, the Lord is shouting into our ears the same words he told the Church of Ephesus in the Apocalypse: “Unless you repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” (2,5). The light may be taken away from us too, and we would do well to allow this warning in all its gravity to resound in our soul, at the same time crying to the Lord: “Help us to convert! Give us all the grace of a true renewal! Do not allow your light among us to be extinguished! Reinforce our faith, our hope and our love, so we may bear good fruit!”...

...Life sprang from the Son’s death, a new construction, a new vineyard is formed. He, who at Cana changed water into wine, changed his blood into wine of true love and in doing so he transformed wine into his blood. In the cenacle, he anticipated his death and transformed it into a gift of self in an act of radical love. His blood is a gift, it is love and for this it is the true wine which the Creator was waiting for. In this way, Christ himself becomes the grapevine, and this grapevine always bears good fruit: the presence of his love for us, which is indestructible...

...In the holy Eucharist, He draws all to himself from the cross (Jn 12:32) and he makes us become shoots of the grapevine which is Himself. If we remain united in Him, then we will also bear fruit and no longer will the vinegar of self-sufficiency, of discontent with God and his creation flow from us; rather there will be good wine of rejoicing in God and of love towards our neighbour. We pray that the Lord gives us his grace, so that in the three weeks of the Synod which we are starting, we will not only say nice things about the Eucharist, but above all we will draw life from its power. We invoke this gift through Mary, dear Fathers of the Synod, who I greet with much affection, together with the many Communities from which you come and which you represent, so that obedient to the movements of the Holy Spirit, we can help the world to become, in Christ and with Christ, the fertile grapevine of God. Amen.

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