TRÁI TIM MẸ:  NƠI CON NƯƠNG NÁU - ĐƯỜNG ĐẾN VỚI CHÚA

"Chúa Giêsu muốn dùng con để làm cho Mẹ được nhận biết và yêu mến"

July 30, 2009 -  Thursday of Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time      LITURGICAL/THEME MEDITATION: "The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous" UNIVERSAL CHURCH/WORLD EVENT(S): Former Medjugorje Priest Laicized SAINT OF THE DAY St. Peter Chrysologus  GENERAL MARIOLOGY THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD Book Four - Chapter VII  THE PRESENTATION OF THE INFANT JESUS IN THE TEMPLE.  DIVINE MERCY Divine Mercy in My Soul NOTEBOOK V  TEACHING/TESTIMONY/CONVICTION: Testimony of former abortion provider Joseph Randall, MD

DAILY LITURGICAL MEDITATION

Thursday (7/30):  "The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous" Scripture:  Matthew 13:47-53 47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. 51 "Have you understood all this?" They said to him, "Yes." 52 And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his  treasure what is new and what is old." 53 And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there. Meditation: What can a story of a dragnet and a great catch of fish tell us about God's kingdom? The two most common ways of fishing in Jesus' time was with a casting-net (or hand-net) which was thrown from the shore and the drag-net or trawl which was let down or cast into the waters from a boat. As the boat moved through the waters the drag-net was drawn into the shape of a great cone which indiscriminately took in all kinds of fish and flotsam and jetsam swept in its path. It usually took several men to haul such a net to shore. What is Jesus' point here? Just as a drag-net catches every kind of fish in the sea, so the church acts as God's instrument for gathering in all who will come. Just as the drag-net does not or cannot discriminate, so the church does not discriminate between the good and the bad, the useless and the useful. God's kingdom is open to all who will accept and believe. But there will come a time of separation, at the close of the age, when the angels will send the good and the bad to their respective destinations. Our duty is to gather in all who will come. God, in the end, will give the good and the bad the reward they deserve. God offers the treasure of his kingdom to all who believe. Do you hunger for God and his kingdom? "Lord Jesus, increase my hunger for your kingdom and fill my heart with eager longing for you that I may one day gaze upon your face in everlasting bliss." Psalm 84:1-7,10 1 How lovely is thy dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the LORD;  my heart and flesh sing for joy  to the living God. 3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at thy altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in thy house, ever singing thy praise! [Selah] 5 Blessed are the men whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6 As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs;  the early rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion. 10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.  I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God  than dwell in the tents of wickedness.   www.dailyscripture.net   RETURN TO TOP

UNIVERSAL CHURCH/WORLD EVENTS

Former Medjugorje Priest Laicized Superior: Not a Judgment on Pilgrimage Site   By Jesús Colina VATICAN CITY, JULY 29, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's approval of the laicization of Father Tomislav Vlasic is not a judgment on the claims that Mary is appearing in Medjugorje, says his former superior, the procurator-general of the Franciscan Friars Minor. Father Francesco Bravi told ZENIT today that the laicization was not imposed by the Holy See, but rather was in response to a request presented by Father Vlasic himself, to be dispensed both of priestly celibacy and his religious vows. "He requested it," Father Bravi said, adding that, although Father Vlasic was the assistant pastor in Medjugorje when the first apparitions were reported, the priest has been living in Italy for more than two decades. He was a religious of the Franciscan province of St. Bernardino di Siena (L'Aquila) and had founded the community "Kraljice mira potsuno Tvoji -- po Mariji k Isusu" (Queen of Peace, Totally Yours -- Through Mary to Jesus). Vlasic asked the Holy See to be dispensed from the obligations of priestly ministry, Father Bravi added, because he does not want to accept the sanctions that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith imposed in 2008. These sanctions were levied because of reports about Vlasic regarding "the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspected mysticism, disobedience towards legitimately issued orders and charges contra sextum [against the 6th Commandment]," that decree explains. The decree announced five sanctions, including the obligation to remain in one of the Franciscan houses, to refrain from contact with any of the Queen of Peace group, and to leave aside the care of souls, preaching, etc. Father Bravi told ZENIT that Vlasic did not acknowledge the accusations and therefore was unwilling to accept the sanctions. Father Vlasic had an important role at the beginning of the Medjugorje event in 1981, when the six youth began to affirm that Our Lady was appearing to them. However, he was transferred to Italy in 1985. Though he has publicly and in writing offered interpretations of Medjugorje, he has on occasion been contradicted by the visionaries. For example, he affirmed that the community he founded was born because of an express wish of the Virgin, but Marija Pavlovic, one of the visionaries, denied this in a letter she sent to the Holy See. The bishop of Mostar, where Medjugorje is located, has made declarations against the apparitions, but the phenomenon continues to be studied by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in his "The Last Secret of Fatima," published in 2007, said the bishop's declarations are not the definitive and official judgment of the Church. He clarified that personal pilgrimages are permitted to the site, as the investigations continue. TURN TO TOP

DAILY LITURGICAL SAINT

July 30, 2009 St. Peter Chrysologus (406-450?)   A man who vigorously pursues a goal may produce results far beyond his expectations and his intentions. Thus it was with Peter of the Golden Words, as he was called, who as a young man became bishop of Ravenna, the capital of the empire in the West. At the time there were abuses and vestiges of paganism evident in his diocese, and these he was determined to battle and overcome. His principal weapon was the short sermon, and many of them have come down to us. They do not contain great originality of thought. They are, however, full of moral applications, sound in doctrine and historically significant in that they reveal Christian life in fifth-century Ravenna. So authentic were the contents of his sermons that, some 13 centuries later, he was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII. He who had earnestly sought to teach and motivate his own flock was recognized as a teacher of the universal Church. In addition to his zeal in the exercise of his office, Peter Chrysologus was distinguished by a fierce loyalty to the Church, not only in its teaching, but in its authority as well. He looked upon learning not as a mere opportunity but as an obligation for all, both as a development of God-given faculties and as a solid support for the worship of God. Some time before his death, St. Peter returned to Imola, his birthplace, where he died around A.D. 450. Comment: Quite likely, it was St. Peter Chrysologus’s attitude toward learning that gave substance to his exhortations. Next to virtue, learning, in his view, was the greatest improver of the human mind and the support of true religion. Ignorance is not a virtue, nor is anti-intellectualism. Knowledge is neither more nor less a source of pride than physical, administrative or financial prowess. To be fully human is to expand our knowledge—whether sacred or secular—according to our talent and opportunity.   http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay RETURN TO TOP

GENERAL MARIOLOGY

THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD BOOK FOUR Describing the Anxieties of Saint Joseph on Account of the Pregnancy of Most Holy Mary,the Birth of Christ our Lord, His Circumcision,the Adoration of the Kings, the Presentation of the Infant Jesus In the Temple, the Flight into Egypt, the Death of the Holy Innocents, and the Return to Nazareth. CHAPTER IX. THE SWEET INTERCOURSE OF JESUS AND MARY; THEIR RETURN FROM EGYPT. WORDS OF THE QUEEN. My daughter, while journeying at the command of the Lord from one country to another and during the works enjoined upon me, my heart was never troubled nor my spirit cast down; for I always held myself prepared to fulfill entirely the will of God. Although the Lord made known to Me his high ends, yet this was not always done at the beginning, thus permitting me to endure so much the greater sufferings; for in obeying the Lord no further reason is necessary than that the Lord Creator so commands and disposes. The souls must accustom themselves to look for this motive alone and to learn solely to please the Lord, without distinguishing between fortunate or unfortunate events and without looking to their own inclinations. In this kind of wisdom I wish that thou advance. In imitation of me and to satisfy thy obligations toward my most holy Son, do thou receive prosperity or adversity in this mortal life with unmoved countenance and with equanimity and peace or mind. Let not the one grieve, nor the other vainly rejoice thee; but attend only to all that which the Almighty ordains according to his pleasure. Human life is interwoven thus variously with both kinds of events; some of them according, others contrary to the likings of mortals; some which they, abhor others which they desire. As the human heart is limited and narrow it immoderately inclines to extremes, boundlessly desiring what it loves and likes, and, on the other hand, grieving and sorrowing at what it abhors and dislikes. These changeful moods and fluctuations create danger for all or many virtues. The disorderly love for one creature which it cannot attain, moves the soul presently to desire another, expecting a balm for its disappointment in the former. And if it is successful, the soul becomes involved and flurried in the desire of retaining what it possesses, thus casting itself by these velleities into still greater disorders and passions. Attend, therefore, dearest, to this danger and attack it at the root by preserving thy heart independent and riveted only on the divine Providence, without ever allowing it to incline toward what it desires or longs for, or to abhor what is painful to it. Let the will of the Lord be thy only delight and joy. Let neither thy desires draw thee on, nor thy fears dishearten thee. Let not thy exterior occupations, and much less thy regard or attention to creatures, ever impede thee or divert thee from thy holy exercises, attending always to my example. Seek thou lovingly and diligently to follow in my footsteps.    RETURN TO TOP

DIVINE MERCY

Divine Mercy In my soul   The Mercy of the Lord I will sing Forever. Divine Mercy in my soul. Sr. Faustina, Diary   NOTEBOOK V The Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Before Holy Communion I saw the Blessed Mother inconceivably beautiful. Smiling at me She said to me, My daughter, at God’s command I am to be, in a special and exclusive way your Mother; but I desire that you too, in a special way, be my child. I desire, My dearly beloved daughter, that you practice the three virtues that are dearest to Me – and most pleasing to God. The first is humility, humility and once again humility; the second virtue, purity; the third virtue, love of God. As My daughter, you must especially radiate with these virtues. When the conversation ended, She pressed me to Her Heart and disappeared. When I regained the use of my senses, my heart became so wonderfully attracted to these virtues, and I practice them faithfully. They are as though engraved in my heart. This has been a great day for me. During this day I remained as though in unceasing contemplation; the very thought of this grace drew me into further contemplation; and throughout the whole day I continued in thanksgiving which I never stopped, because each recollection of this grace caused my soul ever anew to lose itself in God… O my Lord, my soul is the most wretched of all, and yet You stoop to it with such kindness! I see clearly Your greatness and my littleness, and therefore I rejoice that You are so powerful and without limit, and so I rejoice greatly at being so little. O suffering Christ, I am going to meet You. As Your Bride, I must resemble You. Your cloak of ignominy must cover me too. O Christ, You know how ardently I desire to become like You. Grant that Your entire Passion may be my lot. May all Your sorrow be poured into my heart. I trust that You will complete this in me in the way You deem most fitting.   RETURN TO TOP

CATHOLIC  TEACHING/CONVICTION/TESTIMONY

Testimony of former abortion provider Joseph Randall, MD (This testimony was originally given at a "Meet the Abortion Providers" workshop sponsored by the Pro-life Action League of Chicago, directed by Joe Scheidler. Priests for Life offers their video, "Inside the Abortion Industry," containing excerpts of the testimonies of many former providers. Contact us for more details.)  (continued) Now, what kept me on the fence for a year and a half was money. I had become trapped by the money; not that I wouldn't give up money, necessarily, for certain things, but not my whole life. And now I was getting divorced. By the way, a divorced doctor is known as a poor doctor in Atlanta. The reason for that is that your ex-wife gets a whole lot of money. In my case, she got two-thirds of my income. Now half of my income was tied up in doing the abortions, and the other half in a gynecology practice. I mention a gynecology practice because I didn't do obstetrics. I couldn't deliver babies. I just didn't do that. I said I was giving up delivering because my abortions were my deliveries. Kind of a hard-hearted sort of a guy. You know, it was good not having to get up at night and so forth. It just worked out that way. So, here I was with two-thirds of my income having to go to support my ex-wife and fifty percent of my income, though, being involved with abortion. Therefore I assumed that I would go immediately bankrupt. Now the reason I assumed that even more was my ex-wife was not friendly. It took nine hearings just to get divorced. I just knew it was going to be a terrible thing to do, so I had to come to grips with a little bit of an honesty within me that said, Yes, you can wait till you finish up paying your wife off--it was only like a year or so later that I would be finished making these enormous payments. But the voice said, Do it now. Do it now. It said, Trust Me. A lot of voices were also saying you're going bankrupt; you're going to have all sorts of problems. So, on October 23rd of 1983 (it was a Saturday), I went and did my last abortions on just a few patients. That wasn't my weekend to work so it was just a few patients. And I knew it would be the last day. And that evening, I said No to money and Yes to God, and I called up Becky. Now, Becky has a voice about 50 decibels when she gets excited. So she was excited and the next day I went down to church and opened my mouth and confessed with my mouth that Jesus was Lord and went right up to the altar and cried there with the best of them at the altar. Then, on the way out of church, I saw this blue brochure for a crisis pregnancy center. I just looked at it and kind of felt that this was what I should be involved with. So I picked that up, and the next day I called up the center and said I needed to speak to the head of it. I told them I was a doctor in Atlanta and had done many, many thousands of abortions, and that I came to Christ the day before and now wanted to do everything to save babies instead of take their lives. Well, there was this silence on the phone. You could hear a pin drop, but what I did hear was his Adam's apple going up and down. Is this guy for real? Anyway, he kind of squeaked out, we've gotta talk, and so we went down by the lovely Chatahootchie River--a lovely river in Atlanta--and we talked. And he said, people are going to need to hear this. I am the world's worst speaker--very fearful of speaking-- and now I know exactly what he meant. So that is what I have been doing since then. I think the centers were, at that time, parallel in my heart to what Becky did. They were one of a new wave of love that's going on throughout this country, where they are loving the women who have abortions. They are presenting the Gospel to them; they are giving, sacrificially, in many cases, of their time, of their money, of their willingness to take them into their homes, regardless of whether they keep the baby or give it up for adoption or even abort the babies. They will talk to them after the abortion, if they have problems--they just never give up on these women. And that non-judgmental, fully-accepting love I think is what really attracted me most to continue with those crisis pregnancy centers, and I think it is really what is going on here today and throughout the country. Now, since then, what happened? Well, not only did God give me a new life, everything was completely different after that, and here is this guy who did all the abortions now talking to people about saving babies. What a twist, right? He also gave me gifts, and one of the greatest gifts He gave me was my wife, Patty, a lovely woman whom I met at church, and who had a ministry of her own with alcoholics, and who takes wonderful care of me. What happened about my money? Well, things got a little pinched for a while, as you might expect. My ex-wife has never been known to accept any agreement for payback. We had to come up with an agreement to try to change the financial arrangements. She has never been known to accept anything, not only from me but from any of my attorneys or her six attorneys. Attorneys love me in Atlanta. My attorney uses my case as an example of what not to do. Anyway, I had to come to grips with saying that I needed to pay back all my debts, even though I said it's not fair. I am only making half of my income. How can I pay all of this out? So I had to come to grips with saying that, No, the Bible says that if someone asks for your cloak, you give them your tunic, too. And when I came to that position and that feeling in my heart, the Lord just gave me a plan, and guess what she did? She accepted it. And I am paid up. It's been a few years now. On top of that, it took me about ten years, and perhaps more than that when you consider that rest of my life before that, too, to gain a certain estate amount--a certain amount of net worth and all. Since I have changed my life, my net value or worth has increased by two times what I had before, and, as you notice, in one-third of the time. You have to remember that I lost everything that I had made before--well over a million dollars worth of real estate and everything. And that from basically nothing--I used to have to eat in the hospital because it was free--my wife gives a story of my inviting her over for dinner and having two slabs of cheese and water. I was poor. And from that position, in just a short period of time, the Lord has done this. Also, I have a medical building--the land and the whole thing is mine--that's another whole story I won't get into, but the Lord set that whole thing up. I also have a new partner--a new partner who had to leave the hospital she was taking her life's training at because she refused to have anything to do with abortion. The Lord has put that kind of person around me and that kind of person to be my partner. I never advertised for a partner--I didn't have to.   I think there are two things that I'll just briefly mention in the end. There are two things that are problems in any movement: apathy and disunity. Basically, apathy is saying something like: I am sick and tired of it all and I just don't care about it anyway. It's the type of thing that can be fought very easily. All you have to do is be available and be involved. If you are involved, you are influenced by others and the point of the whole thing is that if you don't do something, the Lord is going to hold you responsible. Proverbs 24 was mentioned and it states quite clearly that if you know people are being led to slaughter, and if you don't do anything about it, you are guilty of murder. And the other thing is, time is running out. Martin Luther said, "If I knew the Lord was coming tomorrow, I would plant a tree today." And I think that's just a stimulus to you all. I know you are all active, but take that sense of urgency--we are running out of time. Number two is disunity. The Surgeon General had talked to me a while back, and he had come over to Emory for a conference, and he had said that really, if we had gotten it all together and got united, we would have licked this thing a long time ago. The key to all that is we have to put down ourselves. We have to put down our own denominations that might tend to separate us. We need to put down our traditions, put down our particular ministries, our maternity homes, our crisis pregnancy centers--whatever--that we all consider our own, really. They are not ours--they are God's. And basically they make us interested in ourselves, and all this tends to really separate us. But we need to be united in the humility of the servant, serving these women, and what they need most is love…the love that was shown to me by God, for forgiving me so that I can stand up here and talk to you all, and let you know what's going on and what happened to my life. We need to love the pregnant women for sure, their little babies within them, their husbands, their boyfriends, their families. Love the abortionists; love their staff; love those that hate you. In the words of Mother Teresa also, "Give till it hurts, and then give some more" for life itself is at stake. I would like to end with Scripture, Ecclesiastes 11:5: Now our hope is in God. And even when we don't know the way, He does. And the Bible says that God's ways are as mysterious as the pathway of the wind. And as the manner in which a human spirit is infused into the body of a little baby inside its mother. So keep on sowing your seed for you never know which will grow. Perhaps it all will. And the silent least of our society are blessed by youth. God bless you.       RETURN TO TOP

Monthly Index              General Archive 2008 General Archive 2007 General Archive 2006 General Archive 2005 General Archive 2004

Hits since 3/16/2004 Màn điện toán toàn cầu của Thiếu Nhi Fatima được bắt đầu với trang Main từ ngày 9/12/1999, nhưng mãi tới Mùa Hè 2001 mới tạm xong, cuối cùng đã được chỉnh trang về cả hình thức lẫn nội dung từ mùa hè năm 2002, để rồi chính thức tái ra mắt vào ngày 25/3/2003 cho đến nay.   TNFatima.org do Thiếu Nhi Fatima chủ trương và thực hiện Mọi ý kiến đóng góp xin gửi về Webmaster