How To Choose A Caterer

Gospel	Mark 6:34-44

The feeding of the five thousand

As Jesus stepped ashore he saw a large crowd, and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length. By now it was getting very late, and his disciples came up to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place and it is getting very late. So send them away, and they can go to the farms and villages round about, to buy themselves something to eat.’ He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.’ They answered, ‘Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?’ ‘How many loaves have you?’ he asked. ‘Go and see.’ And when they had found out they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people together in groups on the green grass, and they sat down on the ground in squares of hundreds and fifties. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing; then he broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the people. He also shared out the two fish among them all. They all ate as much as they wanted. They collected twelve basketfuls of scraps of bread and pieces of fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

Just think, your catering problems would be over if you had Jesus on your team!  At the drop of a hat He fed five thousand men and who knows how many women and children? 

Why did He have to do this?  What was the point?  Well, one of the characteristics of the Messiah was that He would usher in a period of prosperity and plenty.  Feeding a multitude of people at the spur of the moment certainly shows that Jesus was the very essence of prosperity and plenty.  Feeding oneself no matter if you were a caveman or you work in a modern office is something that we work for on a daily basis.  Unlike our ancestors, we do not have to gather in a group and attack and kill our prey or even plant and harvest it personally.  In this country there is abundance and plenty.  Not so for the people of Israel.  They worked harder than we can imagine to make food appear on their table.  When Jesus fed them and there was no effort, no price to be paid and they had filled their tummies to the full, well, they just knew Jesus was the one.  But Jesus did not come here to be a bread king.  When they were going to carry Him away and declare Him king, he was not there.  What a waste of a great publicity stunt!  But it wasn't a stunt.  It was a sign that the time had come and that the savior was indeed in Israel.  He wanted to be the king of men's hearts and so His mission went on.  But all would remember the day that they were fed to complete fullness by a Man who brought nothing with Him. 

Spirit Checker - Batteries Not Included

Whatever we ask God,

we shall receive,

because we keep his commandments

and live the kind of life that he wants.

His commandments are these:

that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ

and that we love one another

as he told us to.

Whoever keeps his commandments

lives in God and God lives in him.

We know that he lives in us

by the Spirit that he has given us.

It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust;

test them, to see if they come from God,

there are many false prophets, now, in the world.

You can tell the spirits that come from God by this:

every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh

is from God;

but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus

is not from God,

but is the spirit of Antichrist,

whose coming you were warned about.

Well, now he is here, in the world.

Children,

you have already overcome these false prophets,

because you are from God and you have in you

one who is greater than anyone in this world;

as for them, they are of the world,

and so they speak the language of the world

and the world listens to them.

But we are children of God,

and those who know God listen to us;

those who are not of God refuse to listen to us.

This is how we can tell

the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.

Do we really need a fancy Electronic Spirit Checker to test the spirits that come into our life?  What spirits?  Well, if you think that your soul is not being fought over even as you sit there and watch the Chicago Bears bring out their secret weapon and use a field goal attempt to throw away their chance at postseason glory then you, my friend, are mistaken.  

Your soul is a very valuable commodity and the powers of the dark realms want it very bad.  They want to spoil everything that is good and decent that is in you and want you to give full vent to the part of your nature that only knows how to satisfy self.  On the other hand, the angel that God has given you is fighting hard each second of each day to suggest good things, helpful things for you to do and to think and to say that will allow the bright light of Christ to shine from you. 

Both sides are relentless and tireless in their quest for you.  What will determine the outcome is something that neither of them has any control over and that is you and your will.  You have the ability to align yourself with either of the sides fighting for your soul as which pleases you. 

Some of us go through life completely unaware of the spiritual battle going on around us.  We make our choices in life, some for good, hopefully, most of them and sometimes we choose evil.  When we choose evil, the devil's representative holds sway over our fate and that is when our Guardian Angel fights harder to get us back.  He will try to swing us back on to the right path by pinging our conscience.  The devil will turn up the noise so we have a harder time hearing our conscience.  He will plant thoughts such as. "It won't hurt to do it once...God certainly has better things to do than to watch me...I want it and deserve it..."  Our conscience will remain broadcasting through all of the static generated by the devil but if we are in tune with God, the conscience will win us over and we will repent and turn away from evil and turn towards the good.  Our Guardian Angel will breathe a sigh of relief but will continue fighting for us.  Isn't it just like God to give us our very own angel? 

Well, Michael the Lesser, have you slipped your moorings?  What is next?  Perhaps you will tell us a story about the Easter Bunny?  How can you believe that you have your own personal angel?  Isn't that a bit conceded on your part?  Conceded, no.  I know I have a Guardian Angel, I have given him a nickname, I call him Miguelito or in English, Little Mike.  I keep him busy twenty-four by seven.  I fail constantly at my vocation of being a good Christian and it is he that keeps me in place as a poor sinner.  By that, I mean that I am not good at sinning.  Oh, I sin, but I don't feel good about it and it weighs heavily on my conscience until I take advantage of the Sacrament of Confession.  It is in Confession where my Angel gets a moment of rest because when I am speaking to Jesus through the priest, I am safe, the devil can neither see nor hear me when I am in the confessional room.  When I come out, my soul is clean, my mind is turned more firmly to God and the battle is joined anew and Miguelito is once again a battlefield but because of my confession, the adversary is just a bit weaker, I am just a bit stronger, and my Angel continues the battle stronger than ever. 

So, yes I believe in Guardian Angels, and no, we do not need some fancy electronic gizmo to help us test the spirits that come to us.  We just need faith in God, a good conscience and a willingness to be humble enough to say "Shimmata" which I am told is Japanese for "I have made a mistake."  (Actually, when I verified this online, I found that this is what it means but that it could be translated as, "Oh no, it has happened." or if we are going to get coarse about it can be translated as "damn" but I like the first definition better. 

Today, think about the battle going on for your soul.  Were you aware that you were so valuable of a commodity that there was a constant war being fought over you?  If you haven't done so already, give your Guardian Angel a nickname and join with him and cooperate with him in the everyday battle for your soul.  When you get to heaven, he will be waiting to see you.  Of course, you'll be speaking to Jesus first!  God Bless. 

Seek and Find

Gospel	Matthew 2:1-12

The visit of the Magi

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east. ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’ they asked. ‘We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.’ When King Herod heard this he was perturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem. He called together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people and enquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ‘At Bethlehem in Judaea,’ they told him ‘for this is what the prophet wrote:

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

you are by no means least among the leaders of Judah,

for out of you will come a leader

who will shepherd my people Israel.’

Then Herod summoned the wise men to see him privately. He asked them the exact date on which the star had appeared, and sent them on to Bethlehem. ‘Go and find out all about the child,’ he said ‘and when you have found him, let me know, so that I too may go and do him homage.’ Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And there in front of them was the star they had seen rising; it went forward and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod and returned to their own country by a different way.

Much has been written about the Magi and the gifts that they brought to the Holy Family. To summarize, Gold symbolized the kingship of Christ. Frankincense symbolized his divinity as it was used in the temple to offer prayers to God and the strangest gift was the Myrrh it pointed to the humanity of Jesus as it was used as a burial ointment. It would be as if you went to a baby shower and brought a card with twenty dollars in it, some Fabreeze to keep air clean near the diaper pail and of course, what every young family needs to care for their newborn, a bottle of embalming fluid. Let's allow those that want to speculate on the gifts have the subject all to themselves and let us immerse ourselves in the Wise Men, their journey and the effects it had on Jerusalem.

The number of wise men that visited the Holy Family was not specified in our scripture. Tradition says it was three based on the number of gifts that were presented to the Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. The may not have been kings in the sense that we understand it, but they were certainly learned men who studied the skies and observed strange phenomena in the eastern sky and interpreted it that it was a sign that a new king of the Jews had been born. Now, they themselves were not Jews so how would they know anything about a king or messiah being born in faraway Israel? Well, if we consider that the astrologers were from Persia and Babylon we know that there was a remnant of Jews living in those regions who did not repatriate back to Israel after the exile was over. These people still were Jews, they still believed and practiced their faith and it was from these people the astrologers that they learned about the expected birth of a new king.

There was much to admire about these Magi. We will assume for the sake of argument because it does not affect the story, that there were, in fact, three of them although some traditions say there were eight or even twelve that visited the Holy Family. Their trip would have been an arduous one but not one that was unheard of. There were trade routes through the desert to Jerusalem and it is logical that they followed one of the normal routes, perhaps joining a caravan on a routine trading trip to the East. Their trip would have been a long one of between one thousand and twelve hundred miles. They would have been on the road for between three and twelve months so they had to have started early in order to get to Bethlehem during the period that the Family was in residence there. There is much speculation about the star that led the astrologers but one that makes the most sense to me would be an act of God in which He provided the “star” in the same way as He provided a pillar of smoke and fire when the Israelis were in the desert fleeing from the Pharaoh and his army. Whatever the star was, it guided our heroes first to Jerusalem, for where would you look for a newborn king except in the capital city of the country? They made inquiries and came to the attention of Herod. He invited them to visit and they explained what they were looking for, a newborn king of the Jews. Well, Herod was disturbed by this and with him all Jerusalem. He asked the priests where the Messiah was to be born and they told him “Bethlehem.” He probably fed the Magi and watered them down with wine and told them to bring him back information as to where the newborn king was so he could go and honor him as well.

It is at this point we are going to leave the story to ponder something that has always mystified me. The priests told the Magi where the Messiah was to be born and the Magi went to the place where the Child was. Why didn't the priests go too? The Jewish world was waiting patiently (more or less) for the arrival of the Messiah. You would think that the priests would be excited and would have run to Bethlehem to welcome the salvation of Israel. After all, the Messiah, in their thinking, was not for the pagan astrologers but was for the salvation of Israel. The yoke of Roman tyranny was to be thrown off. But they were not interested and let the Magi proceed alone. It would seem that the first believers were not the Chosen People other than a few unwashed shepherds but rather outsiders who knew not Yahweh nor did they follow The Law.

In our lives are we like the Magi willing to go to great lengths to learn the truth or are we like the priests who “ho-hummed” the whole thing and went on with their lives believing in and supporting the status quo? The gift of the Magi are gifts that keep giving. Their visit shows that the Messiah was not just for Israel but would be as the angels said “news of great joy which would be for all of the people.” On this great feast of the Epiphany offer yourself to the Lord and make a fresh start. The gifts the Magi brought to the Holy family were very costly. It is said that the Frankincense was worth more than the price of gold back then. Your soul and your future happiness in heaven depends on your relationship with Jesus. He wants nothing else from you except your love and your life. Let today be your Epiphany as you realize the great love God has for you because He sent His only Son to die for you. The gifts of the Magi pale when compared to the gift of His sacrificial death for you. Jesus didn't die for the people, he died for one person at a time, it was personal, it was a gift and it is why the myrrh was one of the gifts given on this blessed feast day. God bless you and yours this day. 

Powered By Love

First reading	1 John 3:11-21

Our love is to be something real and active

This is the message

as you heard it from the beginning:

that we are to love one another;

not to be like Cain, who belonged to the Evil One

and cut his brother’s throat;

cut his brother’s throat simply for this reason,

that his own life was evil and his brother lived a good life.

You must not be surprised, brothers when the world hates you;

we have passed out of death and into life,

and of this, we can be sure

because we love our brothers.

If you refuse to love, you must remain dead;

to hate your brother is to be a murderer,

and murderers, as you know, do not have eternal life in them.

This has taught us, love –

that he gave up his life for us;

and we, too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers.

If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods

saw that one of his brothers was in need,

but closed his heart to him,

how could the love of God be living in him?

My children,

our love is not to be just words or mere talk,

but something real and active;

only by this can we be certain

that we are children of the truth

and be able to quieten our conscience in his presence,

whatever accusations it may raise against us,

because God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything.

My dear people,

if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience,

we need not be afraid in God’s presence.

HOW IMPORTANT IS LOVE?

Our writer today paints a picture for us that shows how important it is to love one another.  He tells us that it must not just be the action of our mouths that express love but our actions and our lives must reflect this love for others.  The consequences of failing to do this are severe.  If we do not love then we are classified as a murderer, to be in the same class as Cain whom we are told belonged to the Evil One. 

THE RESULTS OF OUR LOVING.

Don't think for one moment that by loving those around us that the world will admire you. No, it is more likely that seeing your example that they will hate you.  Why?  It is because you are showing them by your behavior how they should act.  Your return of love for their unlove will anger them because it will tickle their conscience.  Also, they will see how happy you are and compare it with the wretchedness of their own lives and they will be very jealous indeed.  But, fear not, keep the faith and do not return evil for evil.  Your example is an instrument God will be using to bring more of his wayward children back into the fold.  Let revenge and fault finding be the food of the lost for you are not lost for you walk in the Light of Christ. 

LOVE IS AN ACTION WORD.

Talk is cheap so is writing words such as these on paper or reading them if we do not take action.  Love is an action word.  We must do things for people that are truly helpful for them.  Our author echoes the words we find in the letter of James.  He says if a man who can help another fails to do so then how can the love of God be in that man's soul?  So, what it boils down to is to help where you can and do so with a humble heart and expect nothing in return including gratitude.  Do it not for the person you see, but for the person that resides in him, namely Christ the Lord.  For our acts of charity are not given to mere men but they are done in recognition of the length Jesus went to show His love for us.  He went to the Cross for us.

THE RESULT FOR US.

While we do things for our neighbor and expect no reward, our Father in heaven gives us the reward of a clear conscience. If we ourselves can stand before God knowing that we have done our best and showed by our lives that we loved because we were loved, then He will find no fault in us and cover us with the Blood of Christ and accept us as one of His own. 

Remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory today. 

Today is the First Saturday of the month.  Read about the First Five Saturdays Devotions. 

The Five First Saturdays Devotion
How to Precisely fulfill the Five First Saturdays Devotion
as Requested by Our Lady of Fatima


Our Lady of Fatima Promises all the Graces Necessary for Heaven
if a Catholic Finishes the Five First Saturdays Devotion

"Whether the world has war or peace depends on the practice of this devotion, along with the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is why I desire its propagation so ardently, especially because this is also the will of our dear Mother in Heaven." -Sr. Lucy (March 19, 1939)

During her July apparition at Fatima, Our Lady said to Lucia, “I shall come to ask... that on the First Saturday of every month, Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins of the world.” Although she made no further mention of this devotion at Fatima, on December 10, 1925, our Blessed Mother again appeared to Lucia at Pentevedra, Spain, where the seer had been sent to the Dorothean Sisters to learn to read and write. It was there Our Lady completed her request for the Five First Saturdays and gave her great promise.

Appearing with the Queen of Heaven in that apparition was the Infant Jesus, Who said to Lucia: “Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother. It is covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to remove them with an act of reparation.”

Our Lady then spoke: “See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First Saturday of five successive months, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour, meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.”

The elements of this devotion, therefore, consist in the following four points, all of which must be offered in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. One should make this intention before carrying out Our Lady’s requests. A renewal of the actual intention at the time is best; however, if such an intention is made now, it will fulfill the requirements if, for instance, the actual intention is forgotten at the time of confession.


Confession: This confession can be made before the First Saturday or afterward, provided that Holy Communion be received in the state of grace. In 1926, Christ in a vision explained to Lucia that this confession could be made a week before or even more and that it should be offered in reparation.


Holy Communion: Before receiving Holy Communion, it is likewise necessary to offer it in reparation to Our Lady. Our Lord told Lucia in 1930, “This Communion will be accepted on the following Sunday for just reasons if my priests allow it so.” So if work or school, sickness, or another just reason prevents the Communion on a First Saturday, with this permission it may be received the following Sunday. If Communion is transferred, any or all of the other acts of the devotion may also be performed on Sunday if the person so desires.


Rosary: The Rosary is a vocal prayer said while meditating upon the mysteries of Our Lord’s life and Passion and Our Lady’s life. To comply with the request of our Blessed Mother, it must be offered in reparation and said properly while meditating.


15-minute meditation: Also offered in reparation, the meditation may embrace one or more mysteries; it may include all, taken together or separately. This meditation should be the richest of any meditation because Our Lady promised to be present when she said: “...those who keep me company....”

To those who faithfully follow Our Lady’s requests for the Five First Saturdays, she has made a wonderful promise which she, as Mediatrix of All Graces, will certainly fulfill: “I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation.” This means that our Blessed Mother will be present at the hour of death with the actual grace of final perseverance, (which after the gift/grace of Faith), is the most important grace.

After completing the Five First Saturdays, one may continue the devotion simply to console the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady. A tender love of our Blessed Mother will lead one to do all he can to make reparation for the sins which pierce her Immaculate Heart. Let us remember, too, that although Our Lady made this promise to those who would observe five such First Saturdays in succession, in her July apparition she asked simply that Communions of reparation be made on every First Saturday to atone for the sins of the world.

To read more about devotions to Our Lady, click this link: CLICK HERE

Nobody Ever Said That This Was Going To Be Easy

First reading	1 John 3:7-10

No-one sins who has been begotten by God

My children, do not let anyone lead you astray:

to live a holy life

is to be holy just as he is holy;

to lead a sinful life is to belong to the devil,

since the devil was a sinner from the beginning.

It was to undo all that the devil has done

that the Son of God appeared.

No one who has been begotten by God sins;

because God’s seed remains inside him,

he cannot sin when he has been begotten by God.

In this way, we distinguish the children of God

from the children of the devil:

anybody not living a holy life

and not loving his brother

is no child of God’s.

Nobody ever said that being a Christian was going to be easy.  To be a Christian we have to fight against the effects of original sin every day.  These effects are those that bring out our darker side.  It showcases our greed, selfishness, envious natures.  It brings to the front those things that say "Me First."  Being a Christian is to push these all too human traits to the rear and to allow the light of Christ which is in our hearts to shine through. 

It is not sufficient to accept Christ as a savior and ask Him into your heart and then go on your merry way continuing a life where His greatness and His love are blocked from view by our sinfulness.  Yes, ask Jesus into your heart and know that this is a place where He wants to be but then accept His challenge to walk the road to glory, the road that leads not to the gratification of self but to the cross.  Where our Master has been, we too need to pass. Walk the Road to Glory with a joy that will end in the supreme joy of standing next to Jesus on the day you arrive home. 

Give a listen to Michael Card.

Recognizing Jesus

Gospel	John 1:29-34

'Look: there is the Lamb of God'

Seeing Jesus coming towards him, John said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because he existed before me. I did not know him myself, and yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came baptizing with water.’ John also declared, ‘I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove and resting on him. I did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptize with water had said to me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.” Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.’

Our play continues. Remember how the people of the area secretly thought that maybe, just maybe, this John who spoke of repentance was in fact, the Messiah.  They were slightly disappointed when he said no, that he was not the Messiah and while he baptized with water the Savior would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. But they kept coming to him and hoping against hope that he was the one that was come. John saw Jesus approaching and he proclaimed as only John could the Savior was approaching and he told on how he had seen the Spirit come down and rest upon Jesus.  The crowd looked and saw the man known as Jesus.  They saw nothing special but the words of John still rang in their ears.  They began to turn away from John because who needed a Baptist when the Savior was at hand.  The act comes to a close and the curtain falls as we await the next scene. 

You cannot blame the people for not exiting en masse from the side of the Baptist.  They had been taken for a ride before, following this one claiming to be the Messiah,  and for a brief moment or two the man seemingly did good things but then went one step too far and when he could not produce, he was bound hand and foot and thrown out of the city or even stoned for his blasphemy.  No, they had seen it before and they would be very cautious in choosing their next Messiah.  Until then, John would do because he himself made no claims to be the One.  Therefore, the thought was that he might be the one. 

Each of us too, here in the twenty-first century are presented with many messiahs during our lives. Some of us will follow a false Messiah who promises much, silver, gold, fame, fortune and some of us will receive all that was promised and we will congratulate ourselves on how well we have done and we will eat, drink and be merry in a never-ending debauch until we die and it all stays behind. Others of us will claim the inheritance of the Lord.  We will recognize Him and accept Him into our lives.  Our lives may be missing some of the gold and silver, but what He gives us we enjoy to the full on earth and when called away by death, we take it all with us for we carry His love, His way, His teachings in our heart.  It is okay to be rich as long as you know who really owns what you have, the Lord.  It is okay to be poor because the Lord loves you for who you are and He himself knows your struggles.  In the end, it matters not if you are rich or poor in this life.  It is how you live with what you have and how you share with others as Jesus told us to that will make a difference.  From today on, make this your watchword, "Because I live here  the world will be a better place."  This does not depend on you being rich or poor, it is just being you and doing what you know to be the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Remember the poor souls in Purgatory and pray for them today.  

The Feast of Mary, The Mother of God