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This is SO COOL:

A third century Syrian text mentions a cloth that is associated with the miraculous cure of King Abgar V, ruler of Edessa (13-59 A.D.), now called Urfa, in southeastern Turkey. This story was translated almost verbatim by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, in his Ecclesiastical History in 325 A.D.

...Thaddeus brought a cloth to Abgar [who was ill] bearing an image of the face of Jesus. Upon seeing this cloth, Abgar was cured, and the Christian Faith was established in the city.

RTWT. You know how St Jude is often portrayed holding an image of the Lord over his heart?...

"...it is important to reserve a certain time each day for meditation on the Bible so that the Word of God will be the lamp that illuminates our daily path on earth."

1. Jen: 20 Things I learned in my week without my computer

2. Fr. Thomas Hopko: 55 Maxims for Christian Living

If you think the name "Jesus" continually, it purges your sin and kindles your heart; it clarifies your soul, it removes anger and does away with slowness. It wounds in love and fulfills charity. It chases the devil and puts out dread. It opens heaven, and makes you a contemplative. It puts all vices and phantoms out from the lover.

Richard Rolle

HT Julie

(Brought to mind by the movie of the same name)

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--- No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

John Keats, 1819

Wish I'd understood this in my twenties.

Faith is not some state of feeling we get ourselves into. It is much simpler than that. It is simply believing in God and therefore believing everything he has revealed – no matter how we feel. “God said it, so I believe it, and that settles it.”

Feelings are influenced by external things, like fashions and fads, wind and weather, diet and digestion. But when God gives us the gift of faith, he gives it from within, from within our own free will.

The devil can influence our feelings, but he has no control over our faith.

We are not responsible for our (unfree) feelings, but we are responsible for our (free) faith.

Yet, though faith is not a feeling, it often produces feelings: of trust, peace, gratitude, and confidence, for instance. And faith can also be aided by feelings: for instance, when we feel trustful or grateful to someone, God or man, it is much easier for us to believe him than when we feel mistrustful or ungrateful.;

But even when we do not feel trustful or peaceful, we can still believe. Faith is not dependent on feelings. It is dependent on facts: divinely revealed facts.

- Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity

HT: Zach at The American Catholic

The idea of a word, for a contingent being, implies the existence of one who is not myself (the one to whom I speak) and the existence of a truth that is not myself (that about which I speak). Language is a robe for love. -- Anthony Esolen

As troubled as I am by the notion that Christians should be unable to judge right and wrong in our lives and in our culture, simply because we are not exempt from sin, I am more troubled by the notion that Christian love is about reminding people of the law that's written on their hearts ad infinitum rather than practicing love that feels impossible, loving those who are most difficult for us to love. "OH! But that's what I'm doing when I admonish!" they say. "I can't let them go to hell! That would be unloving!" What I know about hellfire and damnation is that Jesus has the power to redeem us, and it is questionable how much power we have to save others from hell. What I know of admonishment, from admonishing my children, is that the more I admonish them, the further they run from me, whereas the more I love them, hold them close, show them affection, the closer they stay and the more likely they are to listen to my corrections. -- Betty Duffy, via TSO

Joy and gaiety were so much a part of [St. Philip Neri's] normal disposition that Goethe, who esteemed him highly, called him the "humorous saint." It was his gay, blithe spirit that opened for him the hearts of children. "Philip Neri, learned and wise, by sharing the pranks of children himself became a child again" (epitaph). -- via Julie

A lovely reflection at Catholic Exchange:

Psalm 139:13-16 rejoices, "My frame was not hidden from You when I was being made in secret ." Earlier in the chapter, verse 13 marvels, "You formed my inward parts; You knit me in my mother’s womb." This word "knit " is also sometimes translated "wove" or "woven." David sings that his being was woven together secretly by God. Often this section of Scripture is used by pro-life activists to emphasize the inherent sacredness of conception and birth, the invisible invasion of created body by God-breathed soul in the protected covering of a mother’s person. But more than a wonder, it is the holy preparation of God.

The word translated "knit" in Hebrew is sakak , meaning “covered.” This word is used almost exclusively in the Old Testament to describe the veiling of the presence of God from human eyes in the Holy of Holies....

As long as we remain sheep, we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support from the Shepherd who feeds not wolves, but only sheep.

(St John Chrysostom, from Homily 34 on St Matthew)

HT: dylan at phos hilarion

"My first pastoral letter's gonna be a condemnation of light beer and instant mashed potatoes -- I hate those two things." -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan, via The Church Ladies

"... Everyone in this mega-community is a somebody with an extraordinary destiny. Everyone is a somebody in whom God has invested an infinite love. That is why the Church reaches out to the unborn, the suffering, the poor, our elders, the physically and emotionally challenged, those caught in the web of addictions..."

--Archbishop Thomas Dolan, in his Installation homily. H/T American Papist

Susan Boyle is sweeping the blogosphere today:

This from Bishop Thomas G. Doran of the Rockford, Ill. Diocese:

I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonoring the practicing Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.

I sign myself

Very truly yours,
The Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.
Bishop of Rockford

As Rosey Posey would say "zzzing!"

Mmmm hmmm, I think he said the cafeteria is cuh-losed!

HT: RC from his Facebook