Christ gives us freedom, true freedom, so that we can embrace our innate goodness, and act out of love; but just because we have been given it does not mean we will act on it:  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/11/true-freedom/

Hi! My friend that is an Athiest wants to try coming to church with me to tey and see if he can feel something with the church (I am Catholic). I of course think it would really benifit him, soI was wondering if there was any advice anyone could give me about how to make this experience best for him? I really want him to enjoy it, and I know a lot of people don't like church, I personally love it, but yea not too sure how to make it the best for him that I can, any advice would be greatly appreciated. God bless

Daily mass readings for Nov 10,2024;

Reading I : 1 Kgs 17:10-16

Reading II : Heb 9:24-28

Gospel : Mk 12:38-44 or 12:41-44

https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-102024/

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Diary of Saint Faustina - paragraph 1244 - Sacrifices and Holocausts 

1244 August 15, 1937. During meditation, God's presence pervaded me keenly, and I was aware of the Virgin Mary's joy at the moment of Her Assumption. Towards the end of the ceremony carried out in honor of the Mother of God, I saw the Virgin Mary, and She said to me, Oh, how very pleased I am with the homage of your love! And at that moment She covered all the sisters of our Congregation with Her mantle. With Her right hand, She clasped Mother General Michael to herself, and with Her left hand She did so to me, while all the sisters were at Her feet, covered with Her mantle. Then the Mother of God said, Everyone who perseveres zealously till death in My Congregation will be spared the fire of purgatory, and I desire that each one distinguish herself by the following virtues: humility and meekness; chastity and love of God and neighbor; compassion and mercy. After these words, the whole Congregation disappeared from my sight, and I remained alone with the Most Holy Mother who instructed me about the will of God and how to apply it to my life, submitting completely to His most holy decrees. It is impossible for one to please God without obeying His holy will. My daughter, I strongly recommend that you faithfully fulfill all God's wishes, for that is most pleasing in His holy eyes. I very much desire that you distinguish yourself in this faithfulness in accomplishing God's will. Put the will of God before all sacrifices and holocausts.

Mary had much to say in this entry from Saint Faustina's Diary but what caught my attention was her last sentence when Saint Faustina was left alone with the Blessed Mother, “Put the will of God before all sacrifices and holocausts.” Saint Faustina was chosen by God and knew she had a special mission but never thought she was beyond correction. I think Mary's command to put God's will ahead of sacrifices and holocausts was a cautionary warning but since sacrifices and holocausts are an Old Testament practice, why was Mary warning Saint Faustina about it in the Christian era?

Saint Faustina was known for such physical mortifications as wearing chains on her legs. She fasted often and sought but was denied permission to wear the hairnet as an additional mortification. She seemed at different times to take physical mortifications beyond what her superiors thought necessary. I think Mary was drawing a connection between Old Testament sacrifices and Saint Faustina's physical mortifications because in a sense, she was making something of an ongoing sacrifice of herself. In a later entry, Christ Himself alludes to more interior types of mortifications and holocausts.

Diary of Saint Faustina

1767 I want to see you as a sacrifice of living love, which only then carries weight before Me. You must be annihilated, destroyed, living as if you were dead in the most secret depths of your being. You must be destroyed in that secret depth where the human eye has never penetrated; then will I find in you a pleasing sacrifice, a holocaust full of sweetness and fragrance. And great will be your power for whomever you intercede.

That entry was written in June 1938 and Saint Faustina died six months later on October fifth. In the year 2000 she was canonized as a Saint, whose powerful intercession we now pray for, fulfilling Christ's own prophecy of Saint Faustina’s future intercessions. I think the annihilation of self that Christ spoke of led into Saint Faustina's Sainthood and also ties her mortifications to the Old Testament sacrifices and holocausts that Mary spoke of. Christ moves all mortifications, sacrifices and holocausts inward though, from flesh to spirit and soul to God, at that “secret depth where the human eye has never penetrated.” 

Christ's point to Saint Faustina was that the annihilation of self now in our fallen world prepares the soul for greater exaltations later in the heavenly plane. The interior annihilation, or mortification of self loosens the souls ties to the fleshy self which is important because our human fleshy self loves the world. If we interioraly annihilate our world-loving self, there is nothing left but the Divine Virtues of God, acquired through Christ in our fallen world, then carried through death into the heavenly plane, where they are enjoined with the Risen Christ for the uplifting of all those still toiling in this fallen veil of tears.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome; Reading 1 : Ez 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 Reading 2 : 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17 Gospel : Jn 2:13-22 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-92024/

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Letter of Saint Catherine of Siena to Brother Antonio of Nizza, of the Hermit Brothers of Saint Augustine of the Wood at the Lake

The Two Wills and the Circularity of Sin

Let us open our eyes, dearest brother, for we have two wills—one of the senses, which seeks the things of sense, and the other the self-will of the spirit, which, under aspect and color of virtue, holds firm to its own way. And this is clear when it wants to choose places and seasons and consolations to suit itself, and says: "Thus I wish in order to possess God more fully." This is a great cheat, and an illusion of the devil; for not being able to deceive the servants of God through their first will—since the servants of God have already mortified it so far as the things of sense go—the devil catches their second will on the sly with things of the spirit. So many a time the soul receives consolation, and then later feels itself deprived thereof by God; and another experience will harrow it, which will give less consolation and more fruit. Then the soul, which is inspired by what gives sweetness, suffers when deprived of it, and feels annoyance. And why annoyance? Because it does not want to be deprived; for it says, "I seem to love God more in this way than in that. From the one I feel that I bear some fruit, and from the other I perceive no fruit at all, except pain and ofttimes many conflicts; and so I seem to wrong God." Son and brother in Christ Jesus, I say that this soul is deceived by its self-will. For it would not be deprived of sweetness; with this bait the devil catches it. Frequently men lose time in longing for time to suit themselves, for they do not employ what they have otherwise than in suffering and gloominess.

The attacks of the devil upon the soul grow more refined as the soul itself grows more refined in God. This is what I think Saint Catherine is saying here. As a soul overcomes the tempting “things of sense,” it is next attacked by temptations from the “self-will of the spirit,” because having overcome a few sensual temptations, the soul credits itself rather than God. Then the soul succumbs to prideful, spiritual laziness which leaves it vulnerable, allowing the devil to catch the soul's spiritual self-will in spirit oriented temptations like pride and self-will. The irony is that overcoming sensual sins like lust or gluttony leads to sins of the spirit, like self will and pride against God, the same sins of spirit that caused the fall of man. 

We have a circularity of sin collectively at work in our species but also within each soul individually. The first sin was of spirit; pride against God which caused our fall and led to more sensual sins which we try to overcome and sometimes succeed by God's grace. But after succeeding, we deny God's grace, relapsing right back to the original sin of pride that fell our species in the first place. And then, felled once again by pride and suddenly more distant from God, the soul grows weak and all the more likely to slip back into sensual temptations as sin cycles its attack back and forth from senses to spirit.

Saint Catherine’s example of pride is subtle but it's relatable  if we've ever succeeded in resisting sin. We feel good about ourselves which seems normal but this is still the birth of pride. It's small in the beginning and buried in the virtue of resisting sin so it’s easy to miss which gives our pride a chance to quickly grow while still undetected. This is where the soul that vainly credits itself for success in virtues gets snared in what Saint Catherine calls the “great cheat,” the delusion of thinking oneself worthy by its own merit of consolations and fruits from God, as if its virtue came from self rather than God. Pride against God has once again cycled us back to the sin of Eden, leading foolish men to replace God with self, this time as our own savior from our own sin. Our pride then opens us up to the same sensual temptations and sins we just escaped from. Next comes a return to humility before God, repentance and a new beginning of genuine piety. But ultimately, that new beginning leads back to the rebirth of pride and self will when we credit ourselves rather than God for our return to virtue and the cycle repeats again.

Saint Catherine speaks of two wills, “one of the senses” and the other of “self will of the spirit.” The first sin was not from the will of our senses but from our spiritual self will pridefully rising up against God which then led into sins of our sensual will. Our sensual flesh is weak and easily led by our stronger spirit. Our spirit is willing but also fickle; seeking God's will one moment but prideful in self will the next. And our spirit will always lead our flesh, either humbly toward God or pridefully uplifted in self toward our next fall.

Supportive Scripture Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall.

It’s been a while since she passed. I am wondering if I pray to her do you think she will send me a sign that she is OK in heaven?

Those Christians who treat the faith merely as some sort of intellectual enterprise are easily led, not only to error, but to accept and do all kinds of great evil, as they deem their actions unimportant. They have  lost sight of the foundation of the faith: love.  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/11/our-engagement-with-our-faith-must-be-holistic/

Does anyone pray this?

I have been working on a PhD for several years and am currently having some issues with a higher up who might arbitrarily not give me an ok I need to continue. Due to the particularities of the situation and the country I'm in, I would almost certainly have no effective recourse.

This is especially painful as I am mere months away from finishing and would have almost nothing to show for years of work.

Please say a prayer that the situation resolve itself in a good manner.

Daily mass readings for Nov 8, 2024; Reading 1 : PHIL 3:17—4:1 Gospel : LK 16:1-8 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-8-2024/

Good Afternoon:

I am contemplating coming back to Rome after being gone for several years…but one thing I cannot get over is the concept of “Eternal Hell”. To me it seems severely immoral, and it’s like a rock stuck in my craw, that I’m unable to swallow.

God knows what it would take to have each and every person believe in Him. Instead we have to rely on millennia old hear-say, and if you don’t choose it, you will be burned forever.

Would any of you put your child into an oven for stealing a cookie?

Would any of you execute a murderer, then raise him back to life to torture in the most unfathomable ways for all of eternity?

No, both of them scream against our morality.

Yet we have to expect it from the One who put that morality inside us?

Please make it make sense.

I’m not coming from a place of pride at all, I feel if I could get over this, everything else could fall into line.

Please help me. I know there are those more intelligent than myself who can articulate it better than I, and they have better arguments, but my tooth is hurting and this is the best I can come up with at the moment. Thanks.

I have been guilty of judging, especially during this election. I need to have more tolerance of others and their opinions, even if I don't agree with them. If I judge them, I too will be judged.

Please, let's all stop judging each other, only God can do that.

Daily mass readings for Nov 7,2024;

Reading 1 : PHIL 3:3-8A

Gospel : LK 15:1-10

https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-72024/

mass readings for Nov 6,2024; Reading 1 : PHIL 2:12-18 Gospel : LK 14:25-33 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-62024/

I really am a christian. I believe in God, His creation, Angels, Holy Mary and Jesus. I pray, do rosary - even wear it as a symbol of my faith, and I am not scared to show that I am a christian. I am transgender and I really fear it. I know nearly no one accepts it. I had a lot of hatefull encounters with religious people just because of it. My parents used to hate me for it, I am scared God will also. Its really hard for me, Ive been praying and crying just to be "normal" but nothing happened, I only stopped feeling as bad with my "being" as I used to wich scared the shit out of me as I thought God will hate me for it. I am scared I will go to hell. I cant go back to my life before transition when no one could help me, even God himself, whem I was bad, nearly depressed and didnt saw any future for me. Now, after it, I feel good - but still the thought of hell is scary for me. I just want God to be proud of me as for His creation.

I dont know what to do with all of it. I am sorry for messy post due to english not being my native language and crying during wriring it.

Daily mass readings for Nov 5, 2024;

Reading 1 : PHIL 2:5-11

Gospel : LK 14:15-24

https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-nov-5-2024/