Fr. Joe Classen in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From Saint Louis Post Dispatch:

Telling the Rev. Joe Classen how much fun hunting and fishing are would be like preaching to the choir.

That's because Father Joe, 33, a Roman Catholic priest who serves as associate pastor at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Parish in south St. Louis County, is both an avid hunter and an experienced angler. Classen is also a newly published author, one so eager to share the myriad ways in which faith has helped his love of the outdoors -- and vice versa -- that he's written a book about the topics.

Classen's book, "Hunting for God, Fishing for the Lord: Encountering the Sacred in the Great Outdoors," should be required reading for anyone who sometimes wonders about life and its meaning. The author has done a good job of articulating personal philosophy as well as outdoors anecdotes, a few fairly hilarious. Of course, what else would you expect from a person so dedicated to archery that he set up his own range on the parish rectory's second floor?

"I shoot through the (guest) room, down the hall, through my bedroom and into the storage attic where the target's been placed," Classen said. "That's a good 20 yards."

A Guardian Angel Story

From Dwight Longenecker:

For the celebration of our Guardian Angels here's a true story

Respect Life Message From Father Benedict

Found at the CFR site, including this interesting note:

During the past few weeks I’ve lived through a part of the terrible drama caused by that decision. A very fine young couple learned from a sonogram that there were difficulties, possibly major difficulties, in the development of their little baby. Without paying any attention to pro-abortion doctors—who are many—they went on with their determination to have the child who is now home with all signs of good health. The parents and family are elated. I also am elated, but more than that I am impressed by the courage and faith of the parents. Would we have known what to do if Pope John Paul II, along with many others, had not clearly condemned the process of abortion?

Father Benedict has a new book out on the virtues that is very interesting and unique. A real page turner:

Part of Ceiling Falls at Marytown Shrine

In Libertyville, IL (National Shrine of St. Maximillian Kolbe).
I've been here many times, beautiful shrine where perpetual adoration takes place around the clock and there always seems to be a good crowd of people praying. This is one of those places you can "sense" God's presence. The heat of the vigil candles burning in the foyer hits you in the face as you walk into the Church, preparing you for you encounter with the Divine.
Thanks to John H. from Kentucky for pointing this out to me, for some reason when I first looked at the story this morning I thought it had happened at another church. Although four people were injured, none were apparently serious. One person who might have taken a direct hit, left just before it fell--the fruit no doubt of her time in adoration. People who pray before the Blessed Sacrament are more able to deal with reality--in this case a stomach ache--perhaps a premonition--that kept her from suffering more seriously.

From the Chicago Tribune:

A group of about 50 women, who were visiting the chapel as thousands of pilgrims do annually, was scheduled to enter the chapel within minutes of the collapse, which occurred around 6:45 p.m.

"I shudder to think what it would have been like on a Sunday morning," said McKinley, the rector and guardian at Marytown, a 12-acre Conventual Franciscan friary and national shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

The group of parishioners was preparing for devotion at the chapel, which is the centerpiece of the Marytown complex.

McKinley said a parishioner who had been sitting in a pew where the ceiling section landed had left shortly before the collapse because she had a stomachache and wanted to lie down.

"Good thing she did," he said.

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the site's main chapel, was modeled after St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of four patriarchal basilicas in Rome. It was built to memorialize the 1926 International Eucharistic Congress, the first held in the U.S.

Quoted by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

In an article on one of my favorite commentators--Frederick Dale Bruner, who I am happy to read is working on a new commentary on the Gospel of John.

From Frederick Dale Bruner: Moving from text to sermon:

You don’t have to write sermons to appreciate Bruner. Michael Dubruiel, an acquisitions editor for the Catholic publisher Our Sunday Visitor, draws on him
when writing books on practical Catholic living and speaking to Catholic groups
on how to live out their faith.
“Bruner gives such a complete overview of what others have said about a passage—as well as commenting on it himself—that you hardly need another reference book on Matthew,” Dubruiel says. He adds that Bruner leaves readers with “a renewed appreciation for Scripture…and what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.”

Thanks to Joan Huyser-Honig for spelling my name right!

One volume of the two-volume series on Matthew by Bruner:

Feast of the Guardian Angels

Yours and mine...

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

That every individual soul has a guardian angel has never been defined by the Church, and is,
consequently, not an article of faith; but it
is the "mind of the Church", as St. Jerome expressed it:
"how great the dignity of the soul, since each one has
from his birth an angel
commissioned to guard it." (Comm. in Matt., xviii, lib. II).

Michael Dubruiel 

The Day of Atonement--Yom Kippur

From St. Louis Today:

No one knows whether it happens with a satisfying "thump," but at sunset Monday, God will close the Book of Life, according to Jewish tradition, and the fate of every Jew will be sealed for another year.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, begins at sunset Sunday and ends at sunset Monday. It is a day dedicated to repentance and forgiveness, the end of the 10-day high holiday season that began with Rosh Hashanah, the festive Jewish New Year. Over those 10 days, Jews worldwide, including the 6,000 in the St. Louis area, seek forgiveness from those they've wronged over the last year, and forgive those who ask it of them.

But Yom Kippur is different. It is the day that Jews will also ask forgiveness for sins they've committed against God. Just before sunset Sunday, Jews will gather for the Kol Nidre prayer, a chant that releases the individual from promises made to God that won't be fulfilled.

The following 25 hours are spent in an intense individual examination of one's life - as it relates to other people, to God, to the Jewish faith and to the prospect of life's finality.

"All our lives we deny we're going to die, but on Yom Kippur we're forced to realize that we're not going to get out of this life alive," said Rabbi Mark L. Shook of Congregation Temple Israel in Creve Coeur. "Yom Kippur makes us think hard about the significance of our lives. What will be different about the world because we've entered and left it?"