Learn to make realistic personal and professional projects at the beginning of the year
"Next Monday I'll start!", "Next year I'll start", "Next year, I promise!"
“If you only seek Christ in His glory, then you are not worthy of His cross”
The way to the glory of Christ and heaven is to unite in love with him, embracing for love the suffering he has embraced in His passion. There is no other way to glory.
Shalom in Paris: a small flame for a great new work
On October 4th 2017, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the first missionaries of the Shalom Catholic Community arrived in the heart of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, near the Parish Church of Our Lady of the Cross, in Ménilmontant. It is a very lively district of the capital, thanks to its diversity of lifestyles and the different origins of the populations that live there. The Chez Moi Associative Café, run by the Shalom Community since January 2018, offers a cozy and creative atmosphere with Brazilian specialties such as tapioca and tropical fruit juices. But more than this, the Café is a welcoming place, like a rather neutral interface, where we can receive all people, even those who don’t ...
Christ King of the Universe: in what does this Kingdom consist
THE INSTITUTION OF THE FEAST It is not new to Christians that Christ is King: the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church and the pious people give testimony. The feast of Christ the King was established less than a hundred years ago in 1925 by Pope Pius XI on the encyclical “Quas Primus” (Latin for “In the first”) where he wrote that Christ needs to be king in every aspect of life: over persons, families, institutions, the state and even the whole universe. WHAT DOES THE “QUAS PRIMAS” ENCYCLICAL SAY? Pope Pius XI wished to make well known and widespread the royal dignity of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first part of the letter, he developed the biblical ...
The Tau in the Shalom vocation
The TAU The TAU is in the form of the Greek letter TAU (T), which is in the shape of a cross. The two major influences for Francis, in relation to the TAU, were the Antonians and the Fourth Council of the Lateran. Saint Francis got the TAU and it’s meaning from the Antonians. They were a male religious community, founded in 1095, whose only job was to care for the lepers. In their habit was painted a great cross. Francis had a familiar relationship with them, because they worked in the Assisi’s leprosarium, in the St. Blase hospital in Rome where Francis went to stay. At the beginning of his conversion, Francis found the Antonians and their symbol of ...
Mons. Leopoldo Girelli, a new pontifical representative, arrives in the Holy Land.
Mons. Leopoldo Girelli, appointed Nuncio Apostolic to Israel and Cyprus and Apostolic Delegate in Jerusalem and Palestine by Pope Francis, is already in the Holy Land.
Why is the Holy Mass SO Powerful?
At the hour of death the Holy Masses you have heard devoutly will be your greatest consolation. Every Mass will go with you to Judgment and will plead for pardon for you. By every Mass you can diminish the temporal punishment due to your sins, more or less, according to your fervor. By devoutly assisting at Holy Mass you render the greatest homage possible to the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord. … Through the Holy Sacrifice, Our Lord Jesus Christ supplies for many of your negligences and omissions. He forgives you all the venial sins which you are determined to avoid. He forgives you all your unknown sins which you never confessed. The power of Satan over you is diminished. ...
The 2 things you should do before Lent is over
More kindness Being kind, Fr. Martin says, looks simple, but is surprisingly difficult. It’s something we should all try to practice every day, but focus on especially during Lent. Here are the three components that Fr. Martin says he uses to put kindness into practice in his everyday life: 1. “Don’t be a jerk,” Fr. Martin says. “That is, even if you’re tired or sick or angry or frustrated or overworked, there’s no need to pass along your misery to the next person. You can choose not to be a jerk.” 2. “Honor the absent. Stop talking about people behind their backs. Nothing is as damaging to the social fabric. It will make people feel bad when they find out about it. And they ...
The worst sinners who became saints
Ask any Catholic to name a sinner who became a great saint and most will answer, “St. Augustine.” As a teenager, Augustine abandoned the Catholic faith for the pagan Manicheans sect, and took a mistress; they lived together for 17 years and had a son. Without meaning to diminish in any way the seriousness of Augustine’s actions, compared to other saints on the calendar, St. Augustine’s sins are pretty tame. Let’s look at a few I like to call, “The depravity all-stars.” St. Mary of Egypt At age 12 Mary (c.344-c.421) ran away from home to Alexandria, the most exciting city in the Roman Empire. She became an accomplished seductress, who took special pleasure in corrupting innocent young men. ...
What is it that drives Simone Biles to be the best?
To answer that question, Us magazine recently asked Biles to empty her gymnastics bag in hopes of finding a secret formula to her success. While most of the contents of her bag were no surprise, the reporter noticed a white rosary that fell out. Biles explained, “My mom, Nellie, got me a rosary at church. I don’t use it to pray before a competition. I’ll just pray normally to myself, but I have it there in case.” Faith has been one of the only constants in her rather difficult life. Biles was born in Ohio to a mother who was battling drug and alcohol abuse and at the age of three she was taken away from her mother. A ...
