November 19, http://www.tribtimes.org
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William Zambrano MD
Nov 18, 2025, 4:04:15 PMNov 18
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(Heb 12:1-2) And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.
CATHOLIC LIFE: What is the Communion of Saints?
YOUTUBE: The Communion of Saints — The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY: Archbishop Fisher OP homily: The communion of saints
EXCERPT CATHOLIC HERALD: I believe in ... the Communion of Saints
The Catholic Faith is often seen as highly centralised and dogmatic but the panoply of saints celebrates the many ways we can live truth. You can be an intellectual giant and public figure like Aquinas or Catherine of Sienna, a "dirty and difficult" man of action like Damien of Molokai, or a bewildered mountain teenager like St Bernadette.
If it's diversity you're after – whether of race, class or mentality – the piety stall is the place to look. The statues of saints that you'll find in that piety stall are condensed stories, like movie trailers. Young woman with a cartwheel? That will be Katherine of Alexandria (patron of fireworks). Chap with three money bags? St Nicholas (patron of pawnbrokers as well as Christmas). Young woman holding her own severed breasts on a tray? St Agatha (patron – thanks to visual confusion – of bell makers). The feast of St Agatha is commemorated by the bakers of Catania by the making of some embarrassingly mammary cakes.
Feast days are another of the ways in which this vast heritage is kept alive. Take a minute to appreciate how extraordinary it is that hundreds of years after their deaths, people like St Patrick or St Anthony still provide the pretext for street parties and community get-togethers. Does any field of knowledge offer such a combination of the arcane and the accessible? Is any invitation so open and inviting?
In the book of Millions, the child narrator's mother, Maureen, has recently died. Throughout the story, he questions the saints of his visions for news of her whereabouts. The film ends with him finally encountering his mother now St Maureen who promises that she will be with him always.
The real power of that phrase "the communion of saints" surely comes in that word "communion", that sense that they – those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith – are all one. Yes, that we will meet again, as Thomas More (patron saint of lawyers and large families) said, "merrily in Heaven".
But more immediately and profoundly that we meet beyond the laws of past and future, life and death, we meet eternally in communion.
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT: Every saint was a sinner and every sinner should be a saint
We do well to remember that every saint was a sinner and every sinner can be a saint. Not only can he be, but he should be, because otherwise his life is a failure. A saint is simply someone who has attained heaven. If you don’t, nothing else profited you anything (cf Mk 8:36).
Considering the truth that every saint became a saint even though he was a sinner ought to make us think in a new way about “all saints,” the communion of saints. It’s not (just) a “winner’s circle” or feast for those who “made it.” It’s an opportunity for us to consider that they were just like us, with many of the same problems and sins, but also many of the same spiritual opportunities.
They succeeded. Why can’t you and I do the same?
The catalog of the saints is full of examples of people who were tempted, even sinned, by the same sins you and I face. The means may change, but the primary drivers of evil–pride, envy, anger, avarice, lust, gluttony, and sloth–remain pretty constant.
In invoking “all the saints,” try to find the ones who perhaps best mirror your life circumstances and seek their intercession so that you become one of them.
"Have ANY Catholic Question? Just ask Ron Smith at: hfmin...@roadrunner.com
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READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: https://bibleinayearonline.com/november-oyb/?version=63&startmmdd=0101
November 19, 2025(Heb 12:1-2) And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.
CATHOLIC LIFE: What is the Communion of Saints?
YOUTUBE: The Communion of Saints — The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY: Archbishop Fisher OP homily: The communion of saints
EXCERPT CATHOLIC HERALD: I believe in ... the Communion of Saints
The Catholic Faith is often seen as highly centralised and dogmatic but the panoply of saints celebrates the many ways we can live truth. You can be an intellectual giant and public figure like Aquinas or Catherine of Sienna, a "dirty and difficult" man of action like Damien of Molokai, or a bewildered mountain teenager like St Bernadette.
If it's diversity you're after – whether of race, class or mentality – the piety stall is the place to look. The statues of saints that you'll find in that piety stall are condensed stories, like movie trailers. Young woman with a cartwheel? That will be Katherine of Alexandria (patron of fireworks). Chap with three money bags? St Nicholas (patron of pawnbrokers as well as Christmas). Young woman holding her own severed breasts on a tray? St Agatha (patron – thanks to visual confusion – of bell makers). The feast of St Agatha is commemorated by the bakers of Catania by the making of some embarrassingly mammary cakes.
Feast days are another of the ways in which this vast heritage is kept alive. Take a minute to appreciate how extraordinary it is that hundreds of years after their deaths, people like St Patrick or St Anthony still provide the pretext for street parties and community get-togethers. Does any field of knowledge offer such a combination of the arcane and the accessible? Is any invitation so open and inviting?
In the book of Millions, the child narrator's mother, Maureen, has recently died. Throughout the story, he questions the saints of his visions for news of her whereabouts. The film ends with him finally encountering his mother now St Maureen who promises that she will be with him always.
The real power of that phrase "the communion of saints" surely comes in that word "communion", that sense that they – those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith – are all one. Yes, that we will meet again, as Thomas More (patron saint of lawyers and large families) said, "merrily in Heaven".
But more immediately and profoundly that we meet beyond the laws of past and future, life and death, we meet eternally in communion.
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT: Every saint was a sinner and every sinner should be a saint
We do well to remember that every saint was a sinner and every sinner can be a saint. Not only can he be, but he should be, because otherwise his life is a failure. A saint is simply someone who has attained heaven. If you don’t, nothing else profited you anything (cf Mk 8:36).
Considering the truth that every saint became a saint even though he was a sinner ought to make us think in a new way about “all saints,” the communion of saints. It’s not (just) a “winner’s circle” or feast for those who “made it.” It’s an opportunity for us to consider that they were just like us, with many of the same problems and sins, but also many of the same spiritual opportunities.
They succeeded. Why can’t you and I do the same?
The catalog of the saints is full of examples of people who were tempted, even sinned, by the same sins you and I face. The means may change, but the primary drivers of evil–pride, envy, anger, avarice, lust, gluttony, and sloth–remain pretty constant.
In invoking “all the saints,” try to find the ones who perhaps best mirror your life circumstances and seek their intercession so that you become one of them.
Ladder of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 5- "On painstaking and true repentance"
27. I am fully aware, my good friends, that the struggles I have described will seem to some incredible, to others hard to believe, and will seem to some to breed despair. But to the courageous soul they will serve as a spur, and a shaft of fire; and he will go away carrying zeal in his heart. He who is not up to this will realize his infirmity, and having easily obtained humility by self-reproach, he will run after the former; and I do not know whether or not even overtake him. But the careless man should leave my stories alone, lest he despair and squander even the little he has accomplished, and thus correspond to the man of whom it was said: 'But from him that hath no desire or eagerness, even what he hath will be taken away from him.Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerR...@aol.com
"Have ANY Catholic Question? Just ask Ron Smith at: hfmin...@roadrunner.com
This month's archive can be found at: http://www.catholicprophecy.info/news2.html.
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