And Then There Were Twelve

Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers and sisters
(there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons
in the one place).
He said, “My brothers and sisters,
the Scripture had to be fulfilled
which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand
through the mouth of David, concerning Judas,
who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus.
Judas was numbered among us
and was allotted a share in this ministry.
For it is written in the Book of Psalms:

Let his encampment become desolate,
and may no one dwell in it.
and:
May another take his office.

Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men 
who accompanied us the whole time 
the Lord Jesus came and went among us,
beginning from the baptism of John
until the day on which he was taken up from us,
become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas,
who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.
Then they prayed,
“You, Lord, who know the hearts of all,
show which one of these two you have chosen
to take the place in this apostolic ministry
from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.”
Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.

Today we are given a glimpse of how things were in those early days and we do learn a couple of facts that will serve us well in the future. There was a whole bunch of people assembled, one-hundred twenty to be exact. In this case, I don't know if that number is a symbol for something else or not, I will check and get back to you on it. But, suffice it to say that a crowd was there.  Now, among the eleven remaining Apostles, who was it that rose up to speak, who was it that was able to silence the crowd, it was Peter.  When Peter speaks, people listen.  We see here an example of his primacy amongst the Apostles. He decides the agenda and we are reminded that Jesus gave him the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, he is the Prime Minister, the person that acts for the King.   The second thing we see is that there is an orderly process to fill the vacancy left by the death of the traitor, Judas Iscariot. They drew lots and depended on the Holy Spirit to select one of the candidates for the office and Mathias drew the short straw, so to speak.

These early days set the pattern that we follow up until today. Now, we do not draw lots to appoint new bishops, we leave that to the Holy Father, the Pope, the man with the keys, the successor to Peter.  The Roman Catholic Church is rich with traditions that allow her to stand out among the denominations. We have a colorful way of doing things that use the things of this world to make things holy, through the grace and power of God, of course.  We are also the Church that Christ founded.  He did not institute the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, or any of the others. Jesus has the Holy Spirit standing guard on His Roman Catholic Church so that she does not teach error.  This safeguard does not flow down to the denominations created by ordinary humans.  To be sure, He loves all of His children, but He has a special love and takes special care with the Roman Catholic Church. 

Why is it, do you think, that assaults against Christianity are centered on the Catholic Church?  The evil one knows that in order for him to triumph he has to defeat her.  He bothers little with the order denominations for they are not protected as the Catholic Church is.  The other denominations may form paths for people to get to heaven, most assuredly so.  But the Roman Catholic Church not only has the full truth of the Gospel, but she is the one best equipped to interpret the Gospel for the world for she has the protection of the Holy Spirit. 

Be proud of your membership in such an august community.  You were chosen to be a Catholic and you have a job to do. one that no one in history will be able to accomplish.  Baske in the Light of Christ and be the first to bend your knee to Him, do this through how you live, and the world will be filled with awe and wonder and you will be able to lead many people home. 

The poor souls in Purgatory need your prayers today.  Please spend a moment or two and say some prayers for them, dedicate a sacrifice for them, and always remember, as they are today, someday you might be. 

What did he say?

When they had gathered together they asked him,
"Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons
that the Father has established by his own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth."


I guess I have a strange sense of humor because I can see what would happen if I had been one of the Apostles on this occasion when Jesus was leaving and had just finished His last conversation and was ascending to heaven when I say "What did He say?"  

Truly, this must have been a scary moment for the Apostles.  They knew that they had been entrusted by Jesus to spread the Gospel far and wide.  Up until now, they could ask Him questions and He would physically answer them.  They could elicit clarifications and assure themselves that they understood exactly what the Savior meant when he said this or that.  Well, that time was over for them.  They must have thought that they would have to depend on their collective memories to teach the Gospel.  They must have felt pretty much overwhelmed at the task that they were left with. Yes, they heard something He said about the Holy Spirit and that they would receive power, but being normal, ordinary men, they could not fathom what that could mean.  As we know, they pretty much locked themselves back into the upper room. They spent the time praying and wondering what they were going to do next. 

We are pretty much powerless beings. I mean, we have our strength and our minds to see us through things. Both of these things serve us well. So well that some people go through their whole life relying on nothing more than these two things and they live fairly decent and happy lives.  This makes sense too because if our mind and our strength were not equal to the tasks of day to day living we would long ago have become extinct. Our powerlessness exists in the realm of spirituality.  Our ancestors proved we were weak, they ate the forbidden fruit, they walked away from God.  God could have left us to our fate of living for a certain time and then entering eternity forever shut out from Him.  We would have spent our years on earth in sweat and toil only to be welcomed to an afterlife of loneliness and bitter cold and darkness.  But God would not allow this to happen.  We were to be given another chance, He would prove His love and in the fullness of time, He did so through His Son, Jesus.  He would have to bolster the lessons He taught and He would make sure that the men that He left would have all of the help that they needed.  The coming of the Holy Spirit would form a holy partnership between God and man.  This partnership would serve to broadcast worldwide the truth that God was in love with man and wanted him to spend eternity with Him.  But, until the Spirit came, we have the Apostles waiting and talking and being fearful and remained locked away. 

In our lives today we are empowered by the same Spirit as the Apostles received.  We may not have felt much on the day that the bishop conferred the sacrament upon us but that power has always been there waiting for us to tap it and when we do that partnership of God and man makes things happen that some would consider impossible.  Christ has ascended to heaven and we await His return.  But, those two men dressed in white that asked the Apostles what they were looking at, why, they say the same things to us.  Get moving, you can do it, you have the power, its always been there.  Let the world know the things you know, give them the Good News, the Spirit dwells in you and begs to be released on an unsuspecting world. 

Please pray for the poor souls in Purgatory.  They are waiting for our help and there are many of them that have no one to pray for them.   Thank you. 

You Have To Ask

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.
Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.



There was a man that found a magic lantern and he rubbed it and out came the genie and told him that because he freed the genie from being imprisoned in the lamp he would grant the man three wishes.   It was a hot day and the man was very thirsty so he wished for a cold bottle of beer.  The Genie told him he would grant the wish but the bottle would be a special one.  First of all, it would be bottomless.  Once he finished the beer it would fill up again so he would never run out of beer. The second thing is that the beer would always remain fresh and ice cold. The man said that would be fine.  Poof, a frosty bottle of the man's favorite beer appeared and it was chilled to the perfect temperature.  The man tipped the bottle to his mouth and before you knew it he had emptied the bottle. As soon as the bottle emptied he saw that it was filled again.  Once again he drank down the perfectly chilled brew and bang it filled up again.  The thanked the Genie.  The Genie reminded him that he had two more wishes.  The man smiled and holding up the bottle said, "I'll have two more of these."

What Jesus is promising us here is not some magic words to manipulate God the Father.  No, because even if we could we would have no reason to do so.  The Father already gives us everything that is good without us having to ask for it.  Did you just take a breath? It was courtesy of the Father. Are you sitting in a room with an electric light on?  Thank God for the electricity that powers that bulb. Everything we have, everything we pretend to own belongs to the Father. He has our interests at heart and will provide the best of the best for us.  Anything that helps us fulfill our ultimate destiny of being with Him in heaven is there for us. 

He is a good father.  He knows what we need and what we don't need.  He knows what will help and what will hinder us and He sends us things as they are needed.  Sometimes a thing may, in fact, be good for us but He withholds it.  There can be many reasons for this.  First, it could be that the timing of our request is not right so his answer is, "Wait."  Perhaps what we think is good is not good for us so His answer as a loving father would be "No."  Other times, the ones we long for, we will ask and He will immediately provide what is asked for.  He is a good father and will always do what is best for us.  We should always ask for what we need and thank Him for listening to us. Then we wait, or we realize we don't really need what we asked for, or what we ask for comes to us.   Gratitude is the attitude that would be appropriate at this time. 

Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, do it now! 

Joy Is More Than An Emotion

Jesus said to his disciples: 
"Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because 
her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.
On that day you will not question me about anything.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you."

Joy is something much more than an emotion, a feeling of happiness.  You can have just experienced a death in the family or have been given a horrible diagnosis by your doctor and in spite of these things you still can have joy in your heart. 

We all feel joy when good things happen.  Yes, getting a raise or promotion at work, meeting your grandchild for the first time, or any one of a thousand different things can elicit the feeling of joy in your heart.  But authentic joy is something altogether different than emotional joy.  Emotional joy comes and goes. True joy, the joy that fills your heart and soul comes from the realization that you are loved by God.  Tears and sorrows may punctuate your time on earth, these happen to all. But the joy that no one can take away from you comes from God and the grace He bestows on you and it resides deep within and is there for you to draw upon when sadness chases away emotional joy.  

The emotion of sadness certainly has to be handled by all of us. We would not be human if we did not feel sad at the death of a loved one, for example.  This is as it should be.  But, deep within us, God is there and His joy will assure you that He has you covered, that you are still loved, that all things will work out for the good eventually.  Your trust in Him will help you find the supply of supernatural joy within you and it will allow you to manage to get through the worst that life has to offer. 

Our brothers and sisters in Purgatory await your prayers.  Please, just an Our Father, Hail Mary, and a Glory Be will mean so much to them.  Thank you! 

Save Rent, Buy a Paul Made Tent!

Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus,
who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla
because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.
He went to visit them and because he practiced the same trade,
stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.
Every Sabbath, he entered into discussions in the synagogue,
attempting to convince both Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia,
Paul began to occupy himself totally with preaching the word,
testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.
When they opposed him and reviled him,
he shook out his garments and said to them,
"Your blood be on your heads!
I am clear of responsibility. 
From now on I will go to the Gentiles."
So he left there and went to a house
belonging to a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God;
his house was next to a synagogue.
Crispus, the synagogue official, came to believe in the Lord
along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians
who heard believed and were baptized.

You have to admire Paul. Not only was he a tireless worker for the Lord, he did his ministry while supporting himself by plying his trade as a tentmaker. Everywhere he went, he brought the Good News with him and gave it out freely to all who would stand and listen. Not everyone was delighted to hear what Paul had to say.  At times, some of the people he was talking to would take great exception to the Gospel and with inflamed self-righteousness, they would attempt to harm Paul.  He knew the risks but he also had faith in the mission he and the other Apostles had been given.  He also knew there might come a day when he would be called to make the ultimate sacrifice for the Lord.  He placed his trust in God and in Jesus and he relied on the Holy Spirit to give him strength when like all men he tired or became disappointed at the reception his preaching got him.  Paul was an all or nothing sort of guy.  When he was against the followers of Christ, he pursued them with all of his heart and soul placed into his effort.  Then, after having some sense knocked into him and coming to the Lord, his was as just as passionate about the Gospel as he had been against it.  

We have the benefit of hindsight.  We have enough evidence at our disposal that proves to us the truth of the Gospel.  We have seen in our families and perhaps in our own lives the touch of Jesus either through the ether on a spiritual plain or through the kindness of another person taking action on our behalf and bringing the Gospel to us through their example. 

I believe that more often than not, Paul's message fell on deaf ears. Yet, he carried on and kept announcing the Gospel to all within the sound of his voice.  In every crowd, the seed might fall on one or two people who were moved by what they heard.  That is pretty slim pickings for the hours of toil that Paul put into his ministry.  

It is hard for us too when we evangelize those nearest and dearest to us.  We know the truth, we know what they need to have, and yet sometimes they have no interest in spiritual things.  We cannot force a person to believe.  Belief in God is a gift that is given to all but not all of those who receive the gift accepts the gift.  Like Paul. we have to be there to gently remind them it is there for them and then we have to go back to making our tents and looking for opportunities to spread the word. 

The Protestants contribute millions of souls to Purgatory every year.  These people who lived a life worthy of eventual unity with God in heaven, languish in Purgatory because none of their fellows in life will pray for them because they do not believe in Purgatory.  Please help a soul today and pray for the Poor Souls.

Knowing the Unknown God

hen Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
"You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.'
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race
to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,
and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God,
even perhaps grope for him and find him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For 'In him, we live and move and have our being,'
as even some of your poets have said,
'For we too are his offspring.'
Since therefore we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image
fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will 'judge the world
with justice' through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead."

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead,
some began to scoff, but others said,
"We should like to hear you on this some other time."
And so Paul left them.
But some did join him and became believers.
Among them was Dionysius,
a member of the Court of the Areopagus,

I guess that the Greeks were a tough egg to crack.  Paul had to give them the chance because that was what he and the other Apostles were commissioned to do.  They were to go through the whole world and bring the Good News of the Gospel to a land and people that were in desperate need of it.  Yet not every place where they went did the seed of the Gospel fall on fertile soil.  In Greece, it appears, that only a few sprouts reached up towards the sun, with the other seeds settling into the rocky soil.

The Greeks were a religious people.  They had temples to every god known to man. What was their problem?  Why was it so hard for them hear and accept the Good News of the Gospel?  I believe that they could not understand how a god would come down and do good to the people of earth. Remember, their gods were nothing more than legends and lights in the sky.  No one had ever seen Zeus or Apollo or any of the other gods that they worshipped, the only evidence for them to even exist was their so-called appearance in the night sky.  They had a hard time believing in a loving God.  Their gods were nasty pieces of work that had to be assuaged or they would do harm to the people, such as causing a crop to fail and bringing famine or causing infertility.  No good was ever ascribed to the Greek gods that weren't paid for in full by those that received their care. 

This talk of Jesus was different. Here was a God that came down from heaven, not to wreak revenge on His disobedient children, but to teach and nurture them and to bring to an end the scourge of death.  This was the hardest thing for the Greeks to hear.  Death has always been the end of man, no one had ever returned from the land of the dead until Jesus did.  This coupled with the loving nature of God was hard for the average Greek philosopher to grasp.  The gods just had a bad reputation and they could not see their way clear to changing their thoughts on the matter.  After all, there were hundreds of years of tradition to go by and they would wait to see what this new God did.  They didn't shut Him out completely, but they did shut Him out.  One person did receive the Word and took it to heart, he was Dionysius the Areopagite. He heard and believed and began working for the Kingdom and became the first Bishop of Athens and was proclaimed a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. 

It is interesting to see how different and yet how all the same we are. For many of us, the Gospel has been presented in many different ways and we have seen its power in our lives and in the lives of others.  Yet, we too sometimes say like the Greeks, "We should like to hear you on this some other time." 

I feel called to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory.  There are millions of us in this place of the joyful dead who need our prayers. We tend to forget about them thinking, for our own comfort and peace of mind, that they are already in heaven even if they are not there yet.  Pray for the poor souls today.  Think of the millions of Protestants who do not have anyone to pray for them. 

Just Another Day in Phillippi With Paul and Silas

The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas,
and the magistrates had them stripped
and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After inflicting many blows on them,
they threw them into prison
and instructed the jailer to guard them securely.
When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell
and secured their feet to a stake.
About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake
that the foundations of the jail shook;
all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. 
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open,
he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
"Do no harm to yourself; we are all here."
He asked for a light and rushed in and,
trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them out and said,
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved."
So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.
He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds;
then he and all his family were baptized at once.
He brought them up into his house and provided a meal
and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.

Well, it was just another ordinary day in Philippi. People went about their business, there was buying and selling going on in the marketplace and Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and thrown into jail where the guard made absolutely sure that they would not get away, not on his watch anyway.  He put them in the most secure cell.  I had a friend once that described such a cell as being incarcerated at 4th and Plumb.  Meaning you were on the fourth floor, plumb in the back - as far from freedom as you could get.  That is where our heroes found themselves and they did not seem too upset about the whole thing. God had other plans for them and they just had to wait until they had a better idea of what they were. God announced the start of His plan with an earthquake that was strong enough to pop all of the cell doors open and cause the prisoner's shackles to fall off.  Of course,  Paul and Silas took the opportunity to stay right where they were.  The jailer had been stunned by the earthquake.  When he came to his senses he saw that all of the cell doors were open.  He knew that his boss would be looking to cover his...I mean doing what he could to keep himself out of trouble.  Luckily, there was a patsy close at hand and the boss would make use of the jailer for this purpose.  The jailer saw all sorts of consequences befalling him and decided that he would do the honorable thing and fall on his sword.  He was about to do this when from deep within the jail, from the lowest point, where the sun never was seen he heard Paul tell him not to do what he was planning that they were still safely under his custody.  He could not believe his ears so he went to check.  There was Paul and Silas, still in the cell even though the door was wide open and she shackles had fallen off of them.  He was amazed.  He knew the strength of those shackles and he knew that it was impossible for a prisoner to remove them himself.  He had heard what Paul and Silas were saying to the other prisoners.  They were talking about this Jesus of Nazareth.  He now believed that he owed his very life to this Jesus.  He took the two followers of Jesus to his own home and after cleaning their wounds, the jailer and his whole family were converted to The Way. 

Sometimes life will hand us a defeat and it will seem that we too are as far back in the dungeon as we can be, pinioned to the wall with shackles made of the hardest iron and we will not know what will happen next.  It is in this dark moment when we are at our weakest point that Jesus will help us find our way out of the dark, into the light and who knows what wonders will be wrought in Him doing so,  In our weakness, he shows us His strength.  When all around us we can only detect darkness, He will blaze up in light so beautiful that we will see clearly what needs to be done.  Yes, we will suffer in this world but be of good cheer for Jesus has overcome the world. 

Remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory, especially the millions of Protestants who did not believe in Purgatory so that they have no one who will pray for their souls.  Pray for the Poor Souls today.   Thank You!