Always Advent

Lovely article here from Zenit last year: a summary of some things Pope Benedict XVI said about Heaven, the narrow gate, friendship with Christ, etc:

Get Your “Passport” Ready for Heaven, Says Pope
http://www.zenit.org/article-20341?l=english

K T from The Scratching Post answered the meme, too: (started it, even…)

http://ktcatspost.blogspot.com/2008/02/week-month-year-half- your-life.html

Thanks!

Father, look on us, your children. Through the discipline of Lent, help us to grow in our desire for you.

–concluding prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, Tuesday in Week 1 of Lent, Morning and Evening Prayer

–

St. Catherine of Siena was a 14th century mystic and doctor of the church. In her book, The Dialogue, she listed four interior qualities we should strive for in order to make our reception of the Holy Eucharist more fruitful. These qualities are faith, love, conversion and desire.

Faith means believing that what we’re receiving in Holy Communion is truly Our Lord Jesus Christ. Love means to give ourselves in service and charity to God and neighbor. Conversion means to turn our hearts away from our sinfulness and our false self and toward Jesus. Desire is an inner longing for communion with God.

All four of these qualities work together to deepen our Eucharistic devotion, but desire provides the motivation to grow in the other qualities. If we don’t really want God, our faith will be weak, our love lukewarm, our conversion half-hearted and our reception of Holy Communion won’t bear much fruit in our lives.

Just watched The Shop Around the Corner tonight with the kids, the 1940 movie with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, upon which You’ve Got Mail was based.

Funny! Very good. Possibly problematic: an off-screen (and unsuccessful) suicide attempt, and an extramarital affair that also occurs entirely off-screen. Less problematic than the co-habitation (and understood fornication) that takes place in YGM.

We all enjoyed it.

Here are Number One Son’s answers to the meme “Where would you most want to spend 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, and half your life?”

1 Day

Davey Jones’s Locker

1 Week

The International Space Station

1 Month

the Death Star

1 Year

Port Royal

Half his life

Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory

Links

Clare’s answers
Number One Daughter’s answers
Number Two Daughter’s answers
SciFiCatholic’s answers

Here are Number Two Daughter’s answers:

1 Day:

The Magic Treehouse

1 Week

The home of her friend Kim’s house

1 Month

The Starship Enterprise

1 Year

Hogwarts

Half her life

Neverland, because she will never get old. Then, when she’s ready for a change of scene, Middle Earth.

More answers:
Clare’s answers
Number One Daughter’s answers
SciFiCatholic’s answers

Yesterday I posted my answers to this meme:

“Where would you most like to live for one week, one month, one year, and for half your life?”

My children also played, and added a new category — 1 day. Number One Daughter answered with the following:

1 Day

I want to spend a day at Jabba the Hut’s palace, as a singer in the band.

1 Week

Tortuga (from Pirates of the Caribbean)

1 Month

the planet Vulcan

1 Year

I want to live and work on a horse farm for a year.

Half My Life

Middle Earth

Over at SciFiCatholic, D.G.D. Davidson has posted a meme that asks:

“Where would you most like to live for one week, one month, one year, and half your life? Explain why.”

His answers:
http://www.scificatholic.com/2008/02/meme-week-month-year-ha lf-your-life.html

I thought this sounded fun, so I’ll play:

A Week

I’d like to spend a week in Petropavlovsk, Russia, because that’s where my adoptive son was born.

A Month

A Carthusian monastery (there are Carthusian monks and nuns, so I could stay with a group of nuns) because it would be a great extended retreat and it would get that monastic thing out of my system.

A Year

Tanzania. The first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere (1922-1999) was a devout Catholic whose cause for canonization has begun. Unlike many African countries, Tanzania is free of tribal strife and civil war, many believe due to Nyerere’s influence.

Half my life

Ireland. I’m half Irish and I’ve never even been to Ireland, but I would love to go “home” and spend many years there tramping across those fields and going to pubs and learning to play a tin whistle. All that.

Wanna play? Leave your answers in the comment box! I’ll share my children’s answers starting tomorrow. You can name real places, like I did, or imaginary places, like SciFiCatholic did, or a combination. Have fun!

What is a “meme,” you ask?

In the context of web logs / ‘blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites it’s some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on. I generally consider these to be actual questions and not some multiple choice quizzes that determine some result at the end (what color you are most like, what cartoon character are you, what 80s movie are you).

More here:http://thedailymeme.com/what-is-a-meme/

Of what use to me is all I learn in school if I do not become holy?

— St. Francis de Sales

Links to online info about St. Francis de Sales

Catholic Online
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=51

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_de_Sales

Catholic Forum
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf03.htm

Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06220a.htm

Give up bitterness; turn to forgiveness.
Give up hatred; return good for evil.
Give up negativity; be positive.
Give up complaining; be grateful.
Give up pessimism; look for the good.
Give up harsh judgments; think kindly thoughts.
Give up worry; trust Divine Providence.
Give up discouragement; be full of hope.
Give up anger; be more patient.
Give up pettiness; be more mature.
Give up gloom; enjoy the beauty all around you.
Give up jealousy; pray for trust.
Give up gossiping; control your thoughts.
Give up sin; turn to virtue.
Give up criticism; see the good in others and in yourself.

(Author unknown)