August 30, http://www.tribtimes.com

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William Zambrano MD

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Aug 29, 2021, 3:37:12 PM8/29/21
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READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEARhttps://oneyearbibleonline.com/august-oyb/?version=63&startmmdd=0101

August 30, 2021  

(Mat 28:19-20) Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

CARDINAL NAPIER: Today (08/29), the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, is a timely reminder of what the powers of this world do to those who bear witness to the truth, regardless of how self evident that truth is!


SIGN.ORGThe Divine Antidote: The Flame of Love Grace, The Triumph of the Mother of God and the New Pentecost

CATHOLIC WORLD REPORTTelling the World’s Greatest Story with seven simple points

A certain “brain fog” is common in telling the story of Jesus. People have a general sense that Christ loves all people and that we are to love Him in return. They know that being close to Jesus is important for going to heaven, and that there are certain terrible things people can do to break-off their relationship with Jesus. Beyond that, the details can get pretty sketchy.


So what are the basic building blocks of the story of Jesus? What are the key points that Christ’s first apostles and St. Paul shared with the people of their time, and that Catholics are called to share with people today? Here is a version of the Gospel in seven simple points:
  1. God created each of us, the universe, and everything in it out of love. We are not accidents! When we consider the beauty and order of creation—from the incredible pictures we see of outer space to the wonders of the way our bodies work—it just doesn’t make sense to say that this is all the product of purposeless processes with no higher power making it all and making it all work. Even our desire to understand creation is due to the fact that our Creator has planted this desire in our hearts. Science has lots of wonderful things to say about how the world works, but we need to look elsewhere to find the answer to the question why. God has revealed to us that He exists as three Persons in one God, and that this one God “is love” (1 Jn 4:8). He created the universe from nothing, and humanity is the crowning achievement of God’s visible creation. Unfortunately, we haven’t always acted like it.
  2. Sin infects the world. Death is the consequence of sin. G.K. Chesterton once described the problem of sin in the world as a truth “as plain as potatoes.” When we look at the world around us and, frankly, when we look inside of our hearts, we know that things are not the way they ought to be. There is evil in the world, and each of our hearts is infected with some measure of evil desire. We believe in two kinds of sin: Original Sin, a condition of sin we all inherit from our first parents, who made the first break from God; and personal sins, the sins each of us commits. It was not God’s plan for death to conquer us, but through sin we have said “no” to His plan for us, and set for ourselves a course for death and even hell, eternal separation from God.
  3. We cannot solve the problems of sin and death. Like a child who breaks something valuable and tries to fix it with Elmer’s Glue, we simply don’t have the power to fix what we’ve broken through sin. We need to be rescued, or death is our only possible destiny. In the meantime, while life has certain joys, apart from God it is most often a drudgery at best, and at worst can lead us to despair. The Book of Job captures this plight powerfully when Job says, “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?” and then, “My life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again” (7:1, 7). Any one of us could say those words truthfully if we had been left to ourselves to recover from the wounds of sin.
  4. God has come to the rescue…and more. God has not left us to recover from the wounds of sin on our own. In His unfathomable love for us, He has sent His only Son to become one of us (cf. Jn 3:16). The Son of God, in the words of St. Athanasius, has become human, so that humans could become divine. In other words, Jesus Christ does more than restore us to what we were before the Fall of Adam and Eve. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus saves us from condemnation and wins for us a life beyond anything we could have imagined. He offers us the power to become like Him, to share in His life forever.
  5. What God has done in Jesus, He has done once and for all. St. Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (4:12). Any person who is saved from sin and death, without exception, is saved by Jesus Christ. Only Jesus is the perfect bridge between divinity and humanity, since He is both God and man. Even in the case of someone being saved without explicitly believing in Jesus, that person must somehow implicitly say “yes” to God with all his heart, without being at fault for his ignorance of Jesus or for staying outside of His Church. In such a case (whatever the probability of such a case is), that person is saved by Jesus, the one Savior of the world.
  6. God’s “once and for all” rescue stretches across time and space in the life of His Church. God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). And so Christ established the Church, calling Peter “the rock” upon whom He would build His Church (Mt 16:18) and telling His first apostles to “proclaim the Gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15), to baptize and teach God’s commandments (Mt 28:19-20), to celebrate the Eucharist (Lk 22:19), and that the Eucharist would bring to the baptized the gift of eternal life (Jn 6:54-55). Every gift God wants to give His people, He offers in and through His Catholic Church, united under Peter, our pope. And for 2000 years the Church has been working to distribute the gifts of God to every corner of the globe, beginning with those first apostles.
  7. “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30)—“Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Salvation is a gift, not something we earn. But as with any gift, we need to be receptive and make good use of what we have been given, with a spirit of gratitude. God is calling each of us to turn our lives over to Him. Each of us is called to repent of our sins, to believe in Jesus Christ, and to become united to Him through the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism makes us members of God’s family in the Church, and then we are called to live as a family, in union with Christ and with each other. We do this especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in the celebration of the other sacraments, in prayer, in works of charity, and in sharing our faith with others. Jesus came so that we might “have life, and have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
This is the story of Jesus, and it is the story of every member of His Church. It is truly the greatest story ever told. Every Catholic needs to learn this story and pray for the grace and courage to share it with others.

Thoughts and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Union with God

3. If you wish to pray well, be faithful in the practice of mortification, avoid dissipation of mind during the day, and never commit any willful faults.

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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