Friday, November 30, 2018

A Catholic Saint, killed by the bloody British for the crime of being a Catholic

St. Edmund Campion




Image of St. Edmund Campion

Facts

Feastday: December 1

Edmund was born in London, the son of a bookseller. He was raised a Catholic, given a scholarship to St. John's College, Oxford, when fifteen, and became a fellow when only seventeen. His brilliance attracted the attention of such leading personages as the Earl of Leicester, Robert Cecil, and even Queen Elizabeth. He took the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging Elizabeth head of the church in England and became an Anglican deacon in 1564. Doubts about Protestanism increasingly beset him, and in 1569 he went to Ireland where further study convinced him he had been in error, and he returned to Catholicism. Forced to flee the persecution unleashed on Catholics by the excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V, he went to Douai, France, where he studied theology, joined the Jesuits, and then went to Brno, Bohemia, the following year for his novitiate. He taught at the college of Prague and in 1578 was ordained there. He and Father Robert Persons were the first Jesuits chosen for the English mission and were sent to England in 1580. His activities among the Catholics, the distribution of his Decem rationes at the University Church in Oxford, and the premature publication of his famous Brag (which he had written to present his case if he was captured) made him the object of one of the most intensive manhunts in English history. He was betrayed at Lyford, near Oxford, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and when he refused to apostatize when offered rich inducements to do so, was tortured and then hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on December 1 on the technical charge of treason, but in reality because of his priesthood. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the forty English and Welsh Martyrs. His feast day is December 1.

Hey Catholics: be in the world and not OF the world, tomorrow we begin Advent

Advent begins with evening prayer, and more realistically, the anticipated Mass that takes place sometime on Saturday afternoon/evening.  It is a most beautiful season and properly prepares us to more fully celebrate the incarnation of Jesus who comes to us as the babe of Bethlehem and it is a time to also prepare ourselves for the 2nd coming of Jesus.

Advent is what Catholics should be celebrating from tomorrow through the first half of December 24th.  If we follow Christ and the Church He established, we celebrate Advent then enter full into the Christmas season that lasts from the second half of December 24th until mid-January(ordinary calendar) or February 2nd(extraordinary calendar).

The world won't let you do this but it really is up to us.  Heck, the secular and the retail has been in full blown Christmas overdrive since before Thanksgiving.  Hallmark runs non-stop movies way too early and Christmas music shows up on the radios soon after Halloween.

You can be in the world and start decorating or talk to your children about the coming of Christmas, but please avoid the human/secular tradition that Christmas is now and ends soon after the Christmas dinner is digested.

Make use of things like the Advent wreath, a small Jesse tree, find Advent music(yep, there is such a thing) and teach one another, especially the children things like joyful waiting, anticipation, hope, preparing, the coming of Jesus.

To help us the USCCB has lots of resources provided in the link below.  In the meantime, wish me a Happy Advent and I will wish you the same:

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/advent/

Praying with the Pope's special December prayer intention

DECEMBER
In the Service of the Transmission of Faith
That people, who are involved in the service and transmission of faith, may find, in their
dialogue with culture, a language suited to the conditions of the present time.
Pope Francis

Friday morning Papal homily

© Vatican Media

Santa Marta: The Mission is a One-Way Ticket

The Importance of the Coherence of Life

The mission is a one-way ticket, said Pope Francis at Mass, November 30, 2018, at the Casa Santa Marta, for the feast of the Apostle Saint Andrew. He insisted on the “coherence” of life: “do what we say”.
In his homily reported by Vatican News, he urged listeners to get rid of “everything that prevents us from continuing in the announcement of Jesus, of this attitude, of sin, of this vice” to be “more coherent” in his testimony.
The announcement is not “a simple news”, but “the only great good news”, he said: “This is not an advertising work, to advertise a very good person, who did good, who healed many people, and He taught beautiful things. No, it’s not advertising. Neither is it proselytizing.”
“What is the announcement of Christ? asked the Pope. It is not proselytizing, or advertising or marketing: it goes beyond … it is above all to be sent. And this mission is carried out “with the condition of putting into play his life, his time, his interests, his flesh”. “This trip only has a one-way ticket, there is no return. Returning is apostasy.”
The Pope spoke of the “scandal” of Christians who call themselves Christians but live “as pagans, as unbelievers.” And he has invited “coherence, between words and life”. The apostle, “he is the one who carries the Word of God, he is a witness”, who plays his life “to the end” and who is “also a martyr”.
God himself, the Pope observed, “to make himself known”, sent his Son “risking his life”, on a trip “with a single ticket, one way”. “The devil tried to convince him to take another path, and He did not want to, He did the will of the Father until the end. And our announcement must follow the same path: the testimony because He has been a witness of the Father becoming flesh. And we must incarnate ourselves, that is, become witnesses: do, do what we say. ”
“The martyrs are those who [show] that the announcement was true,” Pope Francis said again. The men and women who gave their lives, the apostles gave their lives for their blood; but also many men and women hidden in our society and in our families, who daily witness, in silence, to Jesus Christ, but through their lives, with the coherence of doing what they say. ”
To assume “the mission” of proclaiming Christ, he concluded, is to live as Jesus “taught us to live”, “in harmony with what we preach”, so that the announcement “will be fruitful”. To live on the contrary “without coherence”, “to say one thing and do the opposite”, does “a great deal of harm to the people of God”.
During the celebration, Pope Francis also invited to be “near the Church of Constantinople, the Church of Andrew”, and has prayed “for the unity of the churches.”

A big legal victory for EWTN over the evil HHS mandate

EWTN wins lawsuit over HHS contraception mandate


Washington D.C., Nov 30, 2018 / 08:45 am (CNA).- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit issued an order Thursday vacating a 2014 District Court decision against the Eternal Word Television Network in its lawsuit against the so-called contraceptive mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. The order follows a settlement between the network and the Department of Justice, reached Oct. 5.
Under the terms of the settlement, EWTN will not be required to provide contraception, sterilization, or abortifacients through its employee health care plan.
“This moment has been a long time coming,” said EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw.
“Almost seven years and two presidential administrations later, the government and the courts have now realized what EWTN has been saying all along, that the HHS mandate was an unconstitutional attempt to coerce us into violating our strongly held beliefs. This is the right outcome for EWTN and for all those who value religious liberty in America.”
The network originally filed suit in February 2012 in response to the mandate, which was introduced by the Obama administration following the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Under the provisions of the act, employer-provided health insurance plans are required to cover certain “preventative services.” These were defined by guidance issued by the Department of Health and Human Services to include all contraception methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including abortifacient birth control pills, IUDs, and sterilization procedures.
The specifics of the contraception mandate were not included in the original bill, but were announced in January 2012 by then-HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
EWTN’s initial suit was dismissed in March 2013 by the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, following an initial effort by the Obama administration to amend the regulations.
When the administration’s revisions failed to address EWTN’s moral objections, a second suit was filed by the network in October 2013. In June 2014, the U.S. District Court of Mobile, Alabama ruled against the network, though an injunction was granted while the decision was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
In February 2016, a panel of judges voted  2-1 against EWTN, but suspended that decision pending the outcome of the case Zubik v. Burwell, which also concerned the HHS mandate and was then pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Zubik, the Court of Appeals vacated its own negative order against EWTN on May 31, 2016.  The court’s order asked for further briefing on the matter while the parties worked toward a settlement.
Attorneys for EWTN and the Department of Justice negotiated terms of a settlement under which the government agreed not to enforce the contraceptive mandate against the network, and that EWTN would ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the District Court’s decision. The 11th Circuit granted that request on Nov. 29.
“I am confident this agreement will protect EWTN from such regulations, both now and in the future,” Warsaw told CNA.
EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 38th year, is the largest religious media network in the world. EWTN’s 11 TV channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 300 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 domestic and international AM & FM radio affiliates; a worldwide shortwave radio service; the largest Catholic website in the U.S.; electronic and print news services, including Catholic News Agency, “The National Catholic Register” newspaper, and several global news wire services; as well as EWTN Publishing, its book publishing division.
In a statement released by the network, Warsaw also praised the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, saying “I am grateful to our team of attorneys from Becket who have represented us from the beginning. They have been a tremendous partner in this fight for religious liberty.”
Becket Senior Counsel Lori Windham stated “EWTN has fought long and hard to ensure that its basic freedoms would be protected, and this victory ensures that EWTN can continue to serve as a voice for religious liberty for many years to come.”
On Nov. 7, the Trump administration released two updated rules concerning conscience protections for organizations and individuals in relation to the HHS contraception mandate.
Under the new rules, organizations and individuals objecting to the controversial mandate’s provisions on either religious or moral grounds will be exempt.