Rediscovering the Rosary
2006-10-23 03:30:00
I grew up Catholic. And I grew up knowing that there was one way to say the rosary.
Had I understood that I could have used my rosary beads, and said prayers differently from day to day, I might still be using them rather than the Buddhist prayer beads I adapted after I left the Catholic Church and often pray with.
Read more in Book Reviews
There's a Church Value to Blue Laws
2006-10-23 00:09:00
From "Primary Sources" in the November 2006 issue of Atlantic Monthly:
Church
es may have God on their side, but they can easily lose parishioners to the lure of the shopping mall, the cubicle, or even demon rum, a new study suggests. Two economists examined the effect or repealing "blue laws" -- regulations banning certain retail activity on Sundays -- on church attendance in the 16 states
Read more: Value
Seeing Clearly
2006-10-19 11:26:00
"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3 NRSV)
If we see a speck in a brother's eye, we must first see if there is a log in our own eye; perhaps that speck in our brother's eye is only a reflection of the beam in our own.
David Watson in the Oct. 10 edition of SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail ministry of the Rev. Dave
Read more: Seeing
SURVEY: Nearly 1-in-4 in US are Pentecostal Christians
2006-10-16 13:17:00
The Pew Forum's global survey on Pentecostalism reveals that in the U.S., nearly one-in-four people are pentecostal or charismatic. In some Latin American countries, they account for more than half the population.
These Christians
-- characterized by spiritually renewing "gifts of the Holy Spirit" such as speaking in tongues and divine healing -- support political engagement and are morally
Read more: SURVEY
, Nearly
Cory's Death Triggers Memories of Thurman
2006-10-13 12:23:00
Most of us knew already. But when we settled down in the Marist College fieldhouse after breakfast, "Digger" Phelps had a few hard words for his basketball campers.
Some of us had radios in the dorm rooms where we were housed for the week, and we knew what was coming. You could have a pin drop.
The August afternoon before, Yankee catcher and captain Thurman
Munson had died in a plane crash while
Read more: Triggers
Thoughts, Prayer for a Tragedy: Cory Lidle
2006-10-12 13:20:00
And so it goes - when a celebrity or person in the public eye dies, such as New York Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle, whose plane crashed into a New York City apartment building yesterday, we are left to contemplate the shortness of this life. We are left to pray for a family left behind, left to recall those we loved taken from us and from others. We join a community of grief.
Please take a moment and
Read more: Prayer
, Tragedy
The Subject of Religion
2006-10-06 11:21:00
Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality, with all its difficulties, opportunities, and implications.
The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.
Evelyn Underhill ("The School of Charity") in the Oct. 5 edition of SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail
Read more: Religion
Mother's Day Prayer
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Please join me in this moment of meditation and prayer…
Dear Lord,
On this special day, help us to know, acknowledge and appreciate all that a mother is.
A mother's job is to watch over, nourish, and protect her children. A mother is chief night watchman, with an ear finely tuned to hear the slightest turn of her baby's head. She is doctor, nurse and rescuer all rolled into one. She's knows
Read more: Prayer
Let's Hold Hands
1970-01-01 00:59:59
For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, "Do not fear; I will help you." (Isaiah 41:13 NIV)
Think back to that first time you remember holding hands with someone you love. It felt wonderful from the bottom of your toes to the top of your head. God wants to hold your hand. What is stopping you from letting go of fear and taking hold of God's hand?
God is
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Ordering Life
1970-01-01 00:59:59
There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs.
But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings.
Thomas Kelly in "A Testament of Devotion" in
Read more: Ordering
Through Me
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Through me let there be kind words,
a warm smile, and a caring heart.
Through me let there be a willingness to listen
and a readiness to understand.
Through me let there be dependability,
steadfastness, trust and loyalty.
Through me let there be compassion,
forgiveness, mercy and love.
Through me let there be every quality
I find, O Lord, in Thee.
Author Unknown
Goodbye, Andre the Great
1970-01-01 00:59:59
By Ed Dzitko, NRJ
I've seen Agassi, Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Edberg, Becker and Sampras, and classic matches involving those guys head to head. Agassi is the last of my tennis favorites to leave the court. I'll keep swinging, like he will in his pro tennis afterlife, but I won't watch anymore tennis. There are great players today, yes, but none with any of the draw these guys had.
Greg
Read more: Great
, Goodbye
, Andre
Dick and Rick Hoyt
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Oh to be loved this much...
At Simon's House
1970-01-01 00:59:59
A wonderful and powerful poem, and an incredible video interpretation by the author, Sandy Carlson of Writing in Faith.
Visit Sandy's channel on You Tube.
Read more: Simon
, House
World Trade Center Movie Spiritually Rich
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Oliver Stone's World
Trade
Center
, which opens in theaters today, is "the most spiritually honest film of the year," says movie analyst Marc Newman. He says, for example, that "viewers who have come to see The Lord's Prayer as a rote exercise will not think so again -- ever."
Newman is president of MovieMinistry.com, which provides commentary and more to pastors and churches for sermons and
Read more: World Trade
, World Trade Center
Shrine Can Be All It Wants to Be
1970-01-01 00:59:59
The following article appeared on the Faith Pages in the Aug. 11 edition of the Waterbury Republican American.
By Ed Dzitko, NRJ
The steeple towers of The Shrine
of St. Anne stretch high into the Waterbury sky. Looking east, the cross of Holy Land sits as a majestic inspiration, to those who recall its heyday, as to what The Shrine could become.
"You have to make your own existence based on
God: "Play Ball!"
1970-01-01 00:59:59
The following book review appeared on the faith Pages in the Aug. 18 edition of the Waterbury Republican-American.
By Ed Dzitko, NRJ
My wife's late Uncle Bud had a friend named Bill, a lovely man, a Word War II veteran retired from professional life for quite a few years. Bill loves jokes and baseball, and any opportunity to connect with people.
Over the past 10 years, as we would visit Uncle
Read more: Play Ball
How to Expand Love
1970-01-01 00:59:59
By Sandy Carlson, Writing in Faith
To those of us who have puzzled over, and even felt dismayed by, Jesus' admonition that we forgive those who sin against us 77 times—endlessly—the Dalai Lama has come along to throw us a rope.
Now we have a tool to help us climb out of the hole rather than hang ourselves in despair when we find ourselves in seemingly intractable conflict or brutally loveless
Read more: Expand
No One Understands Separation of Church and State
1970-01-01 00:59:59
There was a story by Jim Brown in the Sept. 18 e-mail edition of Agape Press that told of a school district in Nevada that was not going to allow a poster by a second-grade girl to be displayed with posters by her classmates because it contained the phrases "I Love Jesus," "Church
is Great," and "The Bible is Great."
School officials said the poster was an unconstitutional endorsement of
Read more: State
, Separation
The Tear Wiper
1970-01-01 00:59:59
"I leave you peace; my peace I give you. So don't let your hearts be troubled or afraid."
(John 14:27)
We serve the God who designed the universe and set our world in motion. But those hands that hung the stars in the heavens also wiped away the tears of the widow and the leper. And they will wipe away your tears as well.
Max Lucado in SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail ministry of the Rev.
Ministering to Others
1970-01-01 00:59:59
People may forget what you said...
People may forget what you did...
But people will never forget how you made them feel.
Unknown in SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail ministry of the Rev. Dave Wilkinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church (Green Bay, Wis.).
Read more: Others
Discipleship Today
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Discipleship means living one day at a time as though Jesus were near: near in time, near in place, the witness of our motives, our speech, our behavior. As indeed He is.
Brennan Manning in SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail ministry of the Rev. Dave Wilkinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church (Green Bay, Wis.).
Read more: Today
God's Beautiful Creation
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Every now and again
take a good look at something
not made with hands -
a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream.
There will come to you
wisdom and patience and solace
and, above all, the assurance that
you are not alone in the world.
Sidney Lovett in SOUND BITES, a five-day-a-week e-mail ministry of the Rev. Dave Wilkinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church (Green Bay, Wis.).
Read more: Beautiful
, Creation
Paying to Pray?
1970-01-01 00:59:59
In its second such survey since 2004, the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP) reveals a growing dissatisfaction among affiliated Jews with the cost of High Holiday services. More encouraging however, is the indication that services are striking a more spiritual cord with worshipers across the country.
The 2006 High Holiday Survey was conducted between Aug. 30 and September 18, 2006 by the
Touched by God
1970-01-01 00:59:59
"He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him of no account. Surely He has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was
Read more: Touched
Marines Mask Mistake
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Today, there's a news brief on the Toys for Tots site: "The Talking Jesus doll issue has been resolved. Toys for Tots has found appropriate places for these items. We have notified the donor of our willingness to handle this transaction."
Well isn't that big of the Marines
. What more can you say when you screw up accepting 4,000 presents? I guess some of their savvy PR folks re-read the language
Read more: Mistake
The Nativity Story Opens at The Vatican
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Read the USA Today story in Articles
Read more: Nativity
, Vatican
Thankfulness Towards God
1970-01-01 00:59:59
Enter a store at this time of year and you will be reminded immediately that two major holidays are coming up soon.Still, somewhere around the rows of colorful costumes, tempting bags of candy, and Jack O' Lanterns, before you get into the stringed lights, greeting cards and glittering ornaments, you may spot a small assortment of gourds, pilgrim napkins, and crepe-paper turkeys that hint at the
Mary Oliver's The Fist
1970-01-01 00:59:59
This Mary Oliver
poem from her new book, Thirst, was published in the Autumn 2006 Harvard Divinity Bulletin:
There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course
if you see anything
in the heavens
in this way
you had better get
your eyes checked
or, better, still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens
have no fist,
or wouldn't they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,
Advice on How to Pray Amid the Glitz and Gitter
1970-01-01 00:59:59
"And as we wait in this season of quiet and anticipation of out Lord's birth, most of us are surrounded not with simplicity and silence, but instead, with glitz and glitter, noise, bold advertising, even shoving and fighting for parking spaces at malls in a race for sale items, and the latest gadgets or electronics. Our holy season is reduced to a preoccupation about whether or not we can manage
Read more: Glitz
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