Prayer to St. Jude for Eternal Life

You are my solace, St. Jude, in the face of loss and sorrow.

I pray that you will guide my heart away from the darkness of fear and into the light of Christ.

May the hope that St. Jude keeps alive in my heart be a source of comfort to all those who grieve.

For in that hope, we know God's tender mercy, and we trust God's promise of eternal life.

My soul longs for the fullness of life, which will be revealed to me when I am at God's right hand in heaven.

Stay by my side, St. Jude, so that my soul will always know the power of your healing love.

Amen.

-- Source: National Shrine of St. Jude Claretian Missionaries.

Prayer to Jesus and St. Jude

Dear Lord Jesus,

You know of pain and of suffering, of death and of losing someone you love.

Comfort those who are dying and welcome those who have passed away.

Rest a gentle hand on those whose loved ones have died.

Grant them peace.

Remind them that their friend, St. Jude. hears all prayers.

Share with them the hope of everlasting life.

Amen.

-- Source: National Shrine of St. Jude Claretian Missionaries.

Prayer In Sorrow

God of all consolation,

In your unending love and mercy for us, You turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life.

Show compassion to Your people in sorrow.

Be our refuge and out strength to lift us from the darkness of this grief to peace and joy in Your presence.

We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

The Catechist On Going to Heaven

The Catechist asked her class of seven-year-olds, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?"

"NO!" answered all the children.

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into heaven?"

Again, they answered "NO!"

"Well then, if I was kind to animals, gave candy to all the children and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven?"

Again, they all answered "NO!"

Preplexed, the woman continued, "Then how can I get into heaven?"

One of the boys shouted out, "YOU GOTTA TO BE DEAD!"

Source: The Book of Catholic Jokes

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The Book of Catholic Jokes

Rev. Tim Vakoc Dies On The Eve of Father's Day

Source: The Star Tribute
Father Tim with some of the troops he ministered in Iraq. (Photo provided by his family)


Many people think priests have an easy job. It's not true. I know how hard the priests at my church work all week long.

We've all heard of Army chaplains. But, not many of us have heard about Rev. Tim Vakoc who was gravely injured in Iraq in 2004. The Star Tribune reports:

Five years after being gravely wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the Rev. Tim Vakoc, a well-known and well-loved Roman Catholic priest from Minnesota, has died, his family said Sunday.
[...]
Father Tim, as he was known, was the first military chaplain grievously wounded in the Iraq war. He was injured by a roadside bomb as he was returning from celebrating mass with troops on May 29, 2004, the day before the 12th anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

Say a little prayer for Fr. Tim. He has moved to a better place. But, he'll be missed by those whose lives he touched while he was with us on earth.

One Wish Only

A bus carrying only ugly people crashes into an oncoming truck, and everyone inside dies. Then, they get to meet their maker, and - because of the grief they have experienced - he decides to grant them one wish each before they enter Paradise.

They're all lined up, and God asks the first woman for a wish. She said, "I want to be gorgeous."

God snaps His fingers, and it is done.

The second woman in line hears this and said, "I want to be gorgeous too."

Another snap of His fingers and the wish is granted.

This goes on for a while with each one asking to be gorgeous, but when God is halfway down the line the last guy in the line starts laughing. When there are only 10 people left, this guy is rolling on the floor and laughing his head off.

Finally, God reaches this last guy and asks him what his wish will be. The guy eventually calms down and said, "Make 'em all ugly again".

Prayer to Out Lady of Consolation

Dearest Mary, Mother of Consolation,

Be with me as I pray for the souls of those departed from this life.

Please, join your prayers with mine that our beloved deceased may behold Our Loving Father in heaven.

Please, guide them to the happiness you desire for all of your children.

Most kind and gentle Mother, who knew the loss of your husband and only Son,

Help me understand the passing of my loved ones as a new birth into a more complete life with Our Heavenly Father. And may this understanding one day lead me to peace and acceptance.

Amen.

Peayer For The Departed

O loving Father and Savior,

send Your angels to carry the soul of Your servant from this earth to the heavenly place of eternal and everlasting life.

Let family and friends who have passed before in faith be reunited in joy with the departed.

Forgive any wrongs that have been committed and welcome this beloved spirit into the warm embrace of Your unending peace.

Amen.

Source: Maryknoll Brothers and Sisters

Engineering In Hell

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."

So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day, God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

Source: Comedy Central

Oooolllllld Lawyer

A lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates. To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. To his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the lawyer was, and greeted him warmly.

Then St. Peter and one of his assistants took the lawyer by the hands and guided him up to the front of the line, and into a comfortable chair by his desk.

The lawyer said, "I don't mind all this attention, but what makes me so special?"

St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 193 years old!"

Source: Comedy Central

No Christmas in Basra

Source: Ankawa Online
Basrawi Christians and Muslims attend the funeral of Maysoon, 42, and Osama, 45, Fareed At Mar Afram Chaldean Church in Basra, Iraq. The two siblings were killed by members of the Shia Militias on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007.


By Queen Amidala
Basra, Iraq

Dear all,

With great sorrow, I bring sad news. The militias struck again. This time, they killed a brother and sister. The militias kidnapped them, killed them and then dumped their bodies away from their residence.

If it wasn't for the people who witnessed the murder and then collected the corpses, the dogs might have feasted on their bodies.

The victims names are Mayson and Osmam Fareed. They lived in our neighborhood and attended our church.

Neither one had any connections to the Brits. Mayson worked at a local clinic. Osama was a maintenance worker. They lived in a rented house owned by a Sunni family, who fled Basra. The militias wanted to evict them from the house. The siblings refused to submit to the militias' harrasment. People say the Shia militias wanted the house for a Shia family that was displaced from another part of the country.

The murder of Mayson and Osama hit the Basrawi Christian community very hard. Fr. Emmad, who collected their bodies and presided over the funeral, asked us to cancel any Christmas celebrations this year. In light of Mayson and Osama's death, we all agreed.

There is more disturbing news. Female university students who don't cover their heads are being threatened by students, who are members of the Shia militias.

My family, including myself, decided to flee the country as soon as possible. There's no safe place in Basra anymore.

Pray for us. I know you always do.

Regards,

Queen Amidala
Basra, Iraq

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Related Links:

إلغاء احتفالات الميلاد في البصرة بعد خطف شابين مسيحيين وتصفيتهما
استشهاد شقيقين من أبناء الطائفة المسيحة في البصرة
مسيحين في البصرة يلاحقون من قبل المليشيات

Togetherness

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used. Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as you always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.

Let my name be the household name it always was. Let it be spoken without the shadow of a ghost in it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. What is death but a negligible accident. Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of your sight. All is well, nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

Source: Companions of St. Anthony

We Remember Them

In the rising of the sun,
and its going down,
we remember them.

In the blowing of the wind
and in the chill of the winter,
we remember them.

In the blueness of the sky
and in the warmth of the summer,
we remember them.

In the beginning
of the year and
when it ends,
we remember them.

When we are lost
and sick at heart,
we remember them.

So long as we live,
they too shall live,
for they are now
part of us, so
we remember them.

Source: Companions of St. Anthony

Spelling To Get Into Heaven

A woman arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the gates.

She saw a beautiful banquet table Sitting all around were her parents and all the other people she had loved and who had died before her. They saw her and began calling greetings to her "Hello, how are you? We've been waiting for you! Good to see you."

When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?" "You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her.

"Which word?" the woman asked.

"Love."

The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.

About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day.

While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. "I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word," the woman told him.

"Which word?" her husband asked.

" Czechoslovakia ."

Moral of the story:
Never make a woman angry... There will be Hell to pay later!

Written by Unknown Author

The Limbo Status Is Incorrect

*** Scroll down for updates ***

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ORIGINAL POST - Dec. 01, 2005
It's always bothered me when people would say children who die unbaptized aren't allowed into Heaven. Jesus himself told us that if we don't become like children, we won't see God's Kingdom. So, how could anyone deny them Heaven?

But here's some good news:

THE Catholic Church is preparing to abandon the idea of limbo, the theological belief that children who die before being baptised are suspended in a space between heaven and hell.
[...]
The idea of limbo was developed as a response to the harshness of early Church teachings which insisted that any child who died before he or she was baptised would still be stained by Original Sin and so would be condemned to hell.
[...]
However, an international commission of Catholic theologians, meeting in the Vatican this week, has been pondering the issue and is expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI to announce officially that the theological concept of limbo is incorrect.

Instead, the new belief is expected to be that unbaptised babies will go directly to heaven.

Pope Benedict had already expressed his doubts about limbo when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's doctrinal watchdog.

In an interview in 1984, he said: "Limbo has never been a defined truth of faith. Personally, speaking as a theologian and not as head of the Congregation, I would drop something that has always been only a theological hypothesis."

Read more...

John Haldane, a professor of philosophy at St Andrews University in Scotland was quoted in the report:

"The idea of limbo conjures up the image of God as some kind of government bureaucrat who says to people, not just babies, 'Sorry, you don't have your passport stamped with baptism, you'll have to wait over there'.

"Instead, God's powers are such that He can overcome the issue of Original Sin as He chooses, according to special circumstances."

If children and babies have no place in Heaven, then none of us do.

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UPDATE Dec. 2, 2005
In Year of The Family, late Pope John Paul II wrote in his letter to the children:

In Children there is something that must never be missing in people who want to enter the kingdom of heaven. People who are destined to go to heaven are simple like children, and like children are full of trust, rich in goodness and pure. Only people of this sort can find in God a Father and thanks to Jesus, can become in their own turn children of God.

Source: Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words

I guess this sum it all.

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UPDATE Apr. 22, 2007
It's official, the Catholic church has abolished the limbo status:

A Vatican committee that spent years examining the medieval concept published a much-anticipated report Friday, concluding that unbaptized babies who die may go to heaven.
[...]
The Vatican's International Theological Commission issued its findings — with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI — in a document published by the Catholic News Service, the news agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The commission is advisory, but the pope's endorsement of the document appears to indicate his acceptance of its findings.

Limbo, the commission said, "reflects an unduly restrictive view of salvation."

"Our conclusion," the panel said in its 41-page report, is that there are "serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and brought into eternal happiness." The committee added that although this is not "sure knowledge," it comes in the context of a loving and just God who "wants all human beings to be saved."

Read more...

This conclusion should have been reached hundreds of years ago. Oh well, better late than never.

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In My Own Words

The Cab Driver Goes to Heaven

Being someone who hired many taxis over the years, I understand the following joke so well:

A cab driver reaches the Pearly Gates and announces his presence to St. Peter, who looks him up in his Big Book. Upon reading the entry for the cabbie, St. Peter invites him to pick up a silk robe and a golden staff and to proceed into Heaven.

A preacher is next in line behind the cabby and has been watching these proceedings with interest. He announces himself to St. Peter. Upon scanning the preacher's entry in the Big Book, St. Peter furrows his brow and says, "Okay,we'll let you in, but take that cloth robe and wooden staff."

The preacher is astonished and replies, "But I am a man of the cloth. You gave that cab driver a gold staff and a silk robe. Surely I rate higher than a cabbie."

St. Peter responded, "matter-of-factly: this is heaven and, up here, we are interested in results. When you preached, people slept. When the cabbie drove his taxi, people prayed."

Source: Comedy Central

The worst is when the taxi driver doesn't know the way to your destination. That's when you really start praying, especially if you rent the taxi at night.
 

The Death of Innocents

I'm against the death penalty. In my opinion, it doesn't achieve much. If the person is guilty, then the death penalty wouldn't do much other than give him an easy ride to finish his life instead of spending years in prison reflecting on his crime(s). If an innocent person is sentenced to death, then we have an even bigger problem.

I very much enjoyed watching the movie, "Dead Man Walking."adapted from Sister Helen Prejean's book with the same title. It's actually one of my favorite movies of all times. I salute Sister Helen Prejean for her efforts to abolish the death penalty in America. You probably know that Sister Helen is from New Orleans. She's currently in Baton Rouge as reported by The Gainesville Sun:

Hurricane Katrina forced Sister Helen Prejean and about 60 other nuns to flee their New Orleans Mother House last week and relocate indefinitely to Baton Rouge.

But the catastrophe had an effect on something else to which the woman who has come to be known as "the Death-Penalty Nun" has devoted her life.

"Katrina put a moratorium on the death penalty in Louisiana for at least three years," Prejean, 66, said before her talk Wednesday night at Holy Faith Catholic Church in Gainesville.

She said court buildings in New Orleans were so badly damaged that judges, among other things, won't be reviewing death-penalty cases anytime soon. In effect, Katrina partly did in a day what Prejean has been working more than 20 years to accomplish - abolish the death penalty in the United States.

Read more...

That's probably true, but not for a very long time.

Last December, she published another book titled, "The Death of Innocents : An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions."I haven't read the book yet. But, I intend to read it. I believe in her message, and I hope she succeeds in convincing our politicians to abolish the death penalty.