Daily mass readings for Dec 2, 2024;

Reading 1 : Is 2:1-5

Gospel : Mt 8:5-11

https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-dec-2-2024/

While many know the Jesus Prayer with the words, “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God Have Mercy On Me a Sinner,” there is no specific formula which must be used:  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/12/the-jesus-prayer/

Daily mass readings : First Sunday of Advent;

Reading I : Jer 33:14-16

Reading II : 1 Thes 3:12—4:2

Gospel : Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-dec-1-2024/

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Diary of Saint Faustina - paragraph 742 - Demands of Mercy

742 Yes, the first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of mercy, and I demand the worship of My mercy through the solemn celebration of the Feast and through the veneration of the image which is painted. By means of this image I shall grant many graces to souls. It is to be a reminder of the demands of My mercy, because even the strongest faith is of no avail without works.

Christians worship Christ but in this excerpt from Saint Faustina's Diary, we have Christ Himself seeming to direct our worship away from His person, onto the attribute of His Divine Mercy. We know that Jesus Christ is the physical personification of Divine Mercy so if we worship Christ, we are hand in hand with worshipping his mercy anyway so why is this specific demand necessary? I suspect it's all about Christ making our carnal brains less hardwired to Christ's physical person and more synched into His larger spiritual self, especially in the attribute of His Divine Mercy.

Diary of Saint Faustina - paragraph 88 

I asked Jesus whether the inscription could be: "Christ King of Mercy." He answered, I am King of Mercy.

If we worship Christ our King in all heartfelt truth then we also worship all attributes of the King in equal heartfelt truth. This would include the worship of His Divine Mercy but I don't think this is what we normally envision when we think of worship. I like to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy every day and I believe that can qualify as worship but I think Christ is talking about something different here. The worship of Christ's Mercy is more lively and outward going than the pleading of mercy for ourselves or others. I think the truest and most spiritual worship of Christ's Mercy is the interior spirit pushing the exterior flesh into working acts of mercy for others rather than the pleading of mercy for oneself.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

John 4:24 God is a spirit: and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth.

In paragraph 742 above, Christ directs our attention to the famous image of Him with red and white rays coming from His Most Sacred Heart. And it's revealing that He tells us this image is to be a reminder of the “demands of My mercy,” because even the strongest faith is of no avail without works. We don't normally think of Christ's Divine Mercy as a demanding thing because we're pleading for ourselves or a loved one to be on the receiving end of the Mercy. Christ seems to be making it clear that there are demands that come with His Mercy though, and Scripture has something to say about this also.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

Matthew 18:32-35  Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.

The demands of Christ's Mercy are to be equally merciful ourselves, not hoarding the mercy we plead for but channeling it from interior self, to the exterior world as the wicked servant in the above parable failed to do. And the forceful channeling of God's Mercy is the work that Christ speaks of in the last line of Saint Faustina's entry, “the strongest faith is of no avail without works.” The lesson here is that if we have a lively faith in the Divine Mercy we plead for, we soon recognize that Mercy is bigger than our needs and react accordingly. Christ’s Mercy starts within but Christ’s demand regarding His Mercy is that through faith we work that Mercy outward into the lives of all others.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible 

James 2:17 So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself.

Daily mass readings : Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle; Reading I : Rom 10:9-18 Gospel : Mt 4:18-22 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-302024/

Is buying from stores that contain child labour a sin? Obviously I wouldn't be buying it BECAUSE of the child labour. It's cheap and it's not like I would spend lots of money on one piece of clothing.

SHEIN contains lots of cheaper clothes that are pretty good, but there's lots of drama surrounding it. It's not like SHEIN is the only one, there are so many more that are likely more secretive about it. Thrifting isn't too great because they're mostly not cute and are not too cheap either.

Would that be a sin?

Hey everyone!

I'm currently writing a college research paper on how attending catechism within the Catholic Church has impacted people's faith. This is a personal, reflective paper, so it won't be published or shared with anyone else and will remain anonymous. The only person who will see it is my English professor, who will be grading it.

To clarify for those who are curious, I'm creating an ethnography research paper on my own Catholic journey from my teen years to adulthood. I'm focusing particularly on how catechism hasn't really strengthened my faith, and I'd appreciate hearing different perspectives to deepen my understanding.

Link: https://forms.gle/WXTPMFj5wVEtsDMVA

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Saint Teresa of Avila- Interior Castle - Fourth Dwelling  Places - Interior Gaze

I think I never put this matter so clearly before. To seek God within ourselves avails us far more than to look for Him amongst creatures; Saint Augustine tells us how he found the Almighty within his own soul, after having long sought for Him elsewhere.

Interior recollection is how we find God most intimately but also, interior recollection is very spiritual, and goes against the grain of our carnal nature. We first became fallen by not looking interioraly to God but looking outwardly and away from God, to self and from there it was only natural that our wandering gaze would continue outward from self into creation. That ongoing look away from God to self and next to the material creation deepened our fall from God through the ages. In time it became so normalized that today, even when looking for God Himself, we inherently “look for Him among creatures” rather than deeply within, where God has always been.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

None of this is to deny the beauty of God's creation or that God can be found in fallen creation because God is still omnipresent throughout all of the universe. But in the interactive sense of God redeeming fallen man, we find God most powerfully within ourselves, not in the creation, not even in self but buried beneath self, as the last core remnant of who we were before we set self before God. 

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible 

First Kings 19:18 And I will leave me seven thousand men in Israel, whose knees have not been bowed before Baal, and every mouth that hath not worshipped him, kissing the hands.

Despite my belief that our initial fall from God became a continuing fall through the ages, I still don't believe any of us has cut ourselves off from God altogether. There is still some small uncorrupted remnant in all men, even the greatest monsters of history that has never bowed the knee to kiss the hands of Baal and this is why Saint Catherines tells us, “To seek God within ourselves avails us far more than to look for Him amongst creatures.” If we look for God outwardly we look through corrupted lenses of self, through passions, lusts, and vices which cloud our spiritual vision. And if we think we find God outwardly in the fallen creation, then we're looking at Him amidst the shroud of all accumulated sin since the days of Eden, which hampers our perception of God. If we look for God interioraly though, we are looking away from those outer passions, lusts and jealousies of self to see Him in His purer light, unshrouded by the sins of self and the world. And the more interioraly we go the more self will be burned away in His light. I think we all try to look interioraly to some degree but I doubt any of us are very good at it. We get a little bit beneath the surface and think we're there, mistaking progress for perfection and complicating things even more with the sin of pride.

None of that means we stop looking for God just because pride or some other sin may hamper our journey through the Interior Castle. Sin always challenges us but if we continue looking inward toward God, we will be drawn through all obstacles of sin as they arise, leaving them to our backs as we continue forward to the King's Chamber at the center of the Castle. I doubt any of us will coast easily into the King's Chamber though. I don't even think we’d make it on our own effort even though the last part of our journey may become less difficult. I think God's pull on us will just get stronger as we near Him and make the last part of the journey less difficult. Sin does not survive God's presence so the closer we get to God, the more our sin will whither, the weaker the temptations will be and the stronger His pull will become. We will ultimately be pulled into and immersed in His cleansing interior light by continuing to look for Him interioraly, as Saint Teresa says, and on that day, we shall know, hear and see God interioraly in ways that could never be had by searching for Him among creatures of this fallen realm.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

First Corinthians 2:9 But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.

Every Christian has their own unique gifts and calling, and they should discern is so as to find their focus in life: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/11/finding-our-focus/

Daily mass readings for Nov 29,2024; Reading 1 : RV 20:1-4, 11—21:2 Gospel : LK 21:29-33 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-292024/

1 Corinthians 5:5 "you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."

Is everyone then saved? The sinful must go to hell to be 'punished' and the good believers to heaven but in the day of the Lord all are saved?

Does this imply that hell is purgatory? People are punished and suffer there to be worthy of Christ in the day where they get to meet him?

Mass readings for Thanksgiving day Reading I : Sir 50:22-24 Reading II : 1 Cor 1:3-9 Gospel : Lk 17:11-19 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-28-2024-thanksgiving-day/

Embracing the spirit of thanksgiving, finding something to be thankful for, looking for the good in the midst of all the suffering we experience, will give us strength and hope: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/11/thanksgiving-and-hope/

Daily mass readings for Nov 27,2024 Reading 1 : RV 15:1-4 Gospel : LK 21:12-19 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-272024/

Virtues are interconnected with each other: they need to be engaged with a proper balance. This is why excessively engaging one at the expense of others will end up undermining the very virtue which is being engaged: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/11/finding-balance-moderating-the-extremes/

Daily mass readings for Nov 26, 2024; Reading 1 : RV 14:14-19 Gospel : LK 21:5-11 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-26-2024/

Do you shop Catholic? Great ideas:

https://catholic-link.org/catholic-gifts-communion-wedding-confirmation-baptism-gifts/