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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Screening of Church Employees?

Read this story and wonder...

From Northpinellas: Pastor apologizes to church:

The pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church has apologized to his parishioners for hiring a man accused of making a lewd proposition to a teenager.

Father Tom Madden took sole responsibility for hiring William Forte as the church's facilities manager in February 2004. Forte, 60, was arrested last week on charges that he offered a teen $100 last year to perform a sex act, which the boy refused.

'This has been very disturbing for me,' Madden said Friday during his first interview about the case. 'I carry the weight and pain of a lot of people's lives on my soul.'

Madden said he knew Forte had an arrest record when he hired him. In 1992, Forte had been charged in Polk County with showing pornography to six teens, giving them alcohol and paying them for sex. He ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and received six months' probation.

New Father Groeschel Book

co-authored by Bishop Robert Baker of Charleston, SC...an excellent and beautiful book very suitable as a gift for someone's birthday, religious event, or Christmas. It is hardcover and illustrated throughout, but there is another element to the book that makes it even more special that you can read about by viewing my comments on the Amazon book page by clicking on the link below:

When Did We See You, Lord?

Also check out another new title by Father:

Feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus

From the Office of Readings:

Since my longing for martyrdom was powerful and unsettling, I turned to the epistles of St. Paul in the hope of finally finding an answer. By chance the 12th and 13th chapters of the 1st epistle to the Corinthians caught my attention, and in the first section I read that not everyone can be an apostle, prophet or teacher, that the Church is composed of a variety of members, and that the eye cannot be the hand. Even with such an answer revealed before me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace.

I persevered in the reading and did not let my mind wander until I found this encouraging theme: Set your desires on the greater gifts. And I will show you the way which surpasses all others. For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are nothing at all without love and that this same love is surely the best path leading directly to God. At length I had found peace of mind.

When I had looked upon the mystical body of the Church, I recognised myself in none of the members which St. Paul described, and what is more, I desired to distinguish myself more favourably within the whole body. Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. Indeed I knew that the Church had a body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and more noble member was not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realised that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting.

Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction.