Sometimes all a person can do in troubled times is to continue on in faith even though the pathway is unclear and the territory is unfamiliar and more than a little frightening – sometimes the only constant, is indeed one’s faith. Prayers from the heart aren’t always, or even often, melodious…instead they can be broken and pained and confused….but that is called ‘keeping it real’. There is no fooling God, it is nonsensical to pretend to be something that we are not.
I think it is important that we stand before God as we truly are, for He would rather have us come to Him as we are, than to not come to Him at all.
I haven’t posted a brilliant bargain for a while…so let me share with you a couple of great bargains i bagged recently.
A couple of weeks ago, i was bumming around charity shops in Cheshire and i had just said to my Mum that I never seemed to drop on any nice tablecloths in charity shops…well minutes later we had entered yet another charity shop and Mum came over to show me a lovely tablecloth she had spotted and not only was it only £2 but it was brand new! Lovely ‘ethnicy’ colours and print don’t you think?
Another bargain, though perhaps not quite as impressive as the tablecloth….Christmas napkins I spotted in a nearby homeware shop…original price £5.99 down to £1.49 per pack of 4 napkins…and when i got to the till there was a further discount….so i got both packs (8 napkins) for £1.98.
From an MP3 I’m listening to right now (the link is in one of the posts below):
“God looked at Adam and said, ‘I can do better than that!‘ and then he made Eve” ~ Archbishop Fulton Sheen in his talk, ‘The Philosophy of Life’.
If it be not you,
of whom the merest thought
gladdens so my heart
stirring within my very soul
the sweetest hope
that we two destined be,
then take the heart
within my breast
that sounds your name
with every beat
for it is yours alone
and without you
I have no use for it.
by
Ukok
Lorie writes:
Please pray for us.. We have such a fiancial burdon on us. I was terminated from my position as a resident manager with only two weeks to find a job and a place to live. The board is heartless and may deny my unemployment leaving us with nothing. They gave me no encourahement and just snuck around for weeks knowing that they were going to let me go. I’m so hurt but trying not to show anger for that is not what God wants me to do. I just need prayer for my daughter and i to get the ginancial help we need to make it through the next couple of months. Thank you so much for your prayers. God Bless you all. Lorie
To see more Bubblegum for the Brain posts click HERE.
As many of you know, due to personal circumstances I am going through something of a ‘rough’ patch at the moment. For 3 weeks I have averaged approximately 3 hours sleep each night and some nights not slept at all. There has been lots of tossing and turning and coming downstairs in the middle of the night, praying, lights on, lights off, milky drinks, attempts at reading etc, but all to no avail.
Well, a few days ago I discovered my son’s new and practically unused Sony Walkman (MP3 player) in his room. I decided that since it was new and had been left to lay around and gather dust, I would fill it with Catholic talks and podcasts and prayers and music and that very night, though I didn’t sleep any better, I did at least do something productive with my time while i was laying there waiting for sleep to come.
Considering how beneficial and enjoyable I have found these MP3’s, I would like to share with you a few (okay- a lot of) links that I have found useful for their free Catholic MP3 downloads (and if you know of any others, please leave a comment in the combox of this post).
During the night, though i do listen to talks on faith and spirituality, one of the things i most like to listen to are the songs of the Choir of St. Romanos the Melodist [Roman Sladkopevec] of theByzantine Catholic Seminary in Presov.
Another thing I especially like to do is to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Now it took me quite a while to find this and I was considering creating an MP3 version of this myself because this was just so hard to find, but I do like this MP3 very much indeed and think you will too. So for this download and for other Divine Mercy downloads visit this site and remember to right click and save any of the MP3’s on the site that you are interested in. Divinemercy.org also has some great downloads available and podcasts.
Here is a great site filled with MP3 talks that you might find interesting..there are lots and lots of great audio downloads available there!
Another site with some excellent talks…and better still, many of them…can be found here!
Professor Peter Kreeft has been a firm favourite of mine for many years, I just love how humble he is and how down to earth he is in his talks, no lofty over the head stuff, what an intelligent man to write and speak in such a way that even I can understand what he is saying! He has a great many awesome talks on his website. Professor Scott Hahn also has some great audio resources on his website!
Another site with MP3’s I am really enjoying listening to at the moment is The Catholic Cafe which has some really great talks which i thoroughly recommend.
Many Catholics already enjoy the podcasts at iPadre and though I haven’t really listened to them very often, I intend to do so in the future. I will also be listening to the Audio Catechism from now on…what a find that was! Creighton Edu also have an interesting looking audio page.
The Rosary Army is a real gem of cyberspace which has the audio Rosary and audio Stations of the Cross etc, it is a site not to be missed!
Catholic ipod is another useful site, but i have to admit that i find a little difficult to navigate and many of the links take you to other websites (and there is a lot of advertising on the site itself), still, it has some interesting links that you mght find of interest.
A fantastic selection of MP3 info can also be found HERE on Fr. Tim’s parish website.
And last but by no means least, one of the most informative, and tireless websites for promoting the Catholic Faith and for offering talks on spiritual enrichment – they also have a staggering number of free audio downloads – is Catholic.com. Thanks be to God for their continued good works.
So, in a nutshell, that kind of sums up what I do, or rather, what I listen to, during the early hours of the morning. As i said earlier in this post, if you have any other links to share, please do so, i’m sure there are many more websites that offer free MP3 downloads about Catholic faith and spirituality, Catholic music etc and i would like to find out about them. Hope this post helps out other of you who are interested in downloading and listening to Catholic MP3’s!
copyright of Ukok
This is the first in a set of three images pertaining to ‘love and romance’.
To view other images in the Bubblegum for the Brain series, click HERE.
There you are, thinking that you’ll do a bit of DIY art therapy and then you accidentally stand on a tube of green acrylic paint and…..oh….my…gosh…my…golly….
It’s 2 days on now and though i’ve cleaned the paint of the door and floor (it was much worse than in the photos), the paint on the wall remains there until i can buy a tin of paint to repaint the kitchen.
My daughter says I could splatter the whole wall with different colours and pretend it’s a work of art…she may be on to something…but i don’t think i am brave enough to do it!
Some people are really talented when it comes to etch-a-sketch…..check out this great etch-a-sketch of the Pieta…
….and some people are really not talented at all when it comes to etch-a-sketch….here is my contribution to the world of etching- sketching talent.
Don’t even ask what happened to the letter ‘k’….
“Brain researchers estimate that your unconscious database outweighs the conscious on an order exceeding ten million to one. This database is the source of your hidden, natural genius. In other words, a part of you is much smarter than you are. The wise people regularly consult that smarter part.”
– Michael J. Gelb
I have nothing against the Harry Potter ‘phenomenon’, in fact, a week ago i took my son to see the latest Harry Potter movie at the cinema and very much enjoyed it, but this (below) is completely and utterly offensive to me…
Read more here.
What say you?
I’m not one to slate the Novus Ordo Mass on a regular basis, so kindly tolerate this post, if you will. Visiting with my parents this week, we attended Mass at the local Catholic Church. We had all been to Mass at the local church before and so we knew that there was some serious abuses at this Church during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but NOTHING prepared us for Saturday evenings debacle.
- For this particular parish priest there is no such thing as a solemn procession into church….he enters as though he is participating in the hokey cokey with the words (at every Mass)…’play it Maestro’…to the organist.
- During the Holy Mass he adds his own quips and anecdotes and pieces of totally inapropriate bits of information at every possible opportunity, he forgets where he is on the Order of the Mass and repeatedly fails to show the remotest speck of reverance. When he went to get more consecrated hosts from the Tabernacle he did not kneel before the Lord reserved in the Tabernacle but instead waltzed up to the Tabernacle (and away from it) as though it was his kitchen cupboard, no nod, no bow, no genuflection…in fact, it was an EMHC who later went up to close the door of the Tabernacle and lock it, if memory serves.
- During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the priest declared ‘ oooh, how about that, i’ve just seen an enormous blue-bottle fly into the Holy wine, I imagine he is now drunk on the Lord….chortle….chortle…look at him flying around…chortle chortle…’
- During the Mass one of the EMHC’s, of which there were 4 for the 70 or so people there, did absolutely nothing to prevent, correct etc…the communicant who received the host from the priest (the priest did not wait to see if the man consumed the host, he never does with any of us)….and then the communicant proceeded to make his way to the EMHC who was holding the chalice and then the communicant ’dunked’ the Body of the Lord into the Precious Blood before consuming it. I believe this is called self-intinction and that it is a serious abuse.
- During the Mass the priest decided to talk about the relics of St. Therese coming to England….he laughed at himself and said ‘…of course, she isn’t all in one piece so technically there are only bits of her here in England. Who knows what ‘bit’ you’ll be visiting if you go to ’see’ her! ….chortle ….chortle…’.
- The Recessional hymn was ‘Colours of Day’…but as the priest told us what page number in our hymn books to turn to, he remarked….’…snigger……no, this is not a song to be sung by a gathering at the Crematorium…chortle…chortle…’ . The chorus goes: So light up the fire and let the flame burn…’
Such an awful experience of the Mass in no way diminshes the very Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, but of course, it is hardly conducive to the spirit of prayer and reflection which one seeks to enter into as one prepares for and participates in the Holy Mass.
After that we went to the Tourist Information office and found out where there was another Catholic Church. Today i heard from my parents who this morning went to Mass at the newly discovered Catholic Church, that there is a beautiful Mass offered there. Thanks be to God for that!
Please join me in praying for the priest and parish here mentioned!
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
- Martin Luther King “
RSS - Posts
