The Purpose of Lent

The purpose of Lent is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact that being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew; that it is not an event now over and done with, but a process requiring constant practice. Let us ask then: What does it mean to become a Christian? How does this take place?... If individuals are to become Christians, they need the strength to overcome; they need the power to stand fast against the natural tendency to let themselves be carried along.

Life in the most inclusive sense has been defined as "resistance to the pull of gravity". Only where such is expended is there life; where the effort ceases life too ceases. If this is true in the biological sphere, it is all the more true in the spiritual. The human person is the being which does not become itself automatically. Nor does it do so simply by letting itself be carried along and surrendering to the natural gravitational pull of a kind of vegetative life. It becomes itself always and only by struggling against the tendency simply to vegetate and by dint of a discipline that is able to rise above the pressures of routine and to liberate the self from the compulsions of of utilitarian goals and instincts.

Our world is so full of what immediately impinges on our senses that we are in danger of seeing only details and losing sight of the whole. It take effort to see beyond what is right in front of us and to free ourselves from the tyranny of what directly presses upon us.

~ Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI

Weird and Fun Meme

I've seen this on blogs before, and I actually wasn't tagged for it, I found it on a forum I go on, did it and the results were so funny (to me anyhow) that I had to share them. =)

1. Set your iTunes, iPod, Windows Media Player to shuffle.
2. Copy and paste the questions into a new post and erase my answers.
3. Answer each question with the next song that comes up.
4.Post your results! And feel free to add a comment underneath each answer!

If someone says "Is this okay?" You say:
Carol of the Bells (George Winston)

How would you describe yourself?
Homeward Bound (Various Artists)
Wow, that is kind of... neat. Because Heaven is my future home and I am trying to get there... Interesting.)

What do you like in a guy/girl?
My Confession (Josh Groban)
Weird...

How do you feel today?
Gladiator (Enya)
Huh? I feel like a Gladiator? *cough* Actually, I felt rather pretty today!!!

What's your life purpose?
Memory of Trees (Enya)
Shoot! I was really hoping for "Heaven" for that one. Well, I didn't cheat.

What do your friends think of you?
Heaven (Hayley Westenra)
Wow! Really? LoL
Ha, I didn't cheat to get that song! My eyes popped out after I typed my last comment and then got this song next!

What do your parents think of you?
Lothlorian (Enya)

What do you often think about?
February Song (Josh Groban)
Tee hee, actually, that song has been running through my head lately!

What do you think about the person you like?
Fairytale (Enya)
Wow, I don't like anyone yet, but when I do, I'm sure that's what I'll think of them!
LoL, though if you count Peter Pevensie, he IS a fairytale! *giggles*

What is your life's story?
I Vow to Thee My Country (Charlotte Church)
Oh my gosh. Wow. That's all I can say. (If you've never read the lyrics, read it!)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Exile (Enya)
*coughs* *chokes* *splutters* NOO! I don't want to! This is so wierd! At least it is a game...

What will you dance to at your wedding?
Remember when it Rained (Josh Groban)
What??? Hardly a love song.

What will they play at your funeral?
When You Taught Me How to Dance (Katie Melua)
Awwww! I hope they do!

What is your biggest fear?
Time to Say Goodbye (Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli)
Er, ok. Well, saying good-bye to friends and family when they die, I suppose. Ok, why didn't this pop up for the last question?

What is your biggest secret?
Amazing Grace (Hayely Westenra)
Huh??? Why would I keep that a secret?

What do you think of your friends?
Flaming Red Hair (Lord of the Rings)
*cough* Odd...

What is your future going to be like?
All'improvisso Amore (Josh Groban)
Suddenly Love... I hope so! LoL

What do you see in the person you like?
You Are Loved (Josh Groban)
Hmm, I don't like anyone yet. But I hope I do see that I'm loved by them once I find and like them!

What will the song be for you and your spouse?
Love Story (Taylor Swift)
OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I PROMISE I DIDN'T CHEAT!!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!! OH WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!


*rolls eyes* Ha, that was so weird. =) You should try it!

The Church and the Forty Days

The Church is being urged ever more loudly and insistently to exchange a distant and unreal redemption by the Word for a more robust redemption by bread and the sure path of politicization. Our experience, then, is of a Church in the wilderness, a Church in her forty-day period. It is one of exposure to emptiness, to a world that seems, religiously speaking, to have become wordless, imageless, soundless; exposure to a world in which the heavens over us are dark and distant and impalpable. And yet for us too and for the Church of our day this time in the wilderness can become a time of grace in which a new love can grow out of suffering induced by God's distance from us.
We often have the oppressive feeling that the manna of our faith will be enough only for the presant day - but God gives us that manna new each day if we allow him to do so. We must live in a world in which in God is seemingly to be found only as One who is dead - but He can strike living water even from dead stones.
A Church in her Lent, in her "forty days" in the wilderness. I believe that during this season of fasting we must hearten ourselves anew to accept our situation in patience and faith and to follow fearlessly after our hidden God. If we journey on in patient faith, then for us too a new day can dawn out of the darkness. And God's bright world, the lost world of images and sounds, will be restored to us again; there will be a new morning in God's good creation.

- Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI

Forty Days of Preparation

In the forty days of the preparation for Easter, we endeavor to get away from the heathenism that weighs us down, that is always driving us away from God, and we set off toward Him once again. So, too, at the beginning of the Eucharist, in the confession of sin, we are always trying to take up this path again, to set out, to go to the mountain of God's word and God's presence... We must learn that it is only in the silent, barely noticeable things that what is great takes place, that man becomes God's image and the world once more becomes the radiance of God's glory.

Let us ask the Lord to give us a receptivity to His gentle presence; let us ask Him to help us not to be so deafened and desensitized by this world's loud outcry that our receptivity fails to register Him. Let us ask Him that we may hear His quiet voice, go with Him, and be of service together with Him and in His way, so that His kingdom may become present in this world ... We imitate God, we live by God, like God, by entering into Christ's manner of life. He has climbed down from His divine being and become one of us; He has given Himself and does so continually... It is be these little daily virtues, again and again, that we step out of our bitterness, our anger toward others, our refusal to accept the other's forgiveness. This "littleness" is the concrete form of our being like Christ and living like God, imitating God; He has given Himself to us so that we can give ourselves to Him and to one another.

~ Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI

It's Official!

Blessed Father Damien will become SAINT Father Damien on October 11th!!!!