The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Mary, Mother of God

Mary the Mother of God

I was surprised at the number of people who were at church today. I think there were more at noon mass than at a regular Sunday mass.

Christ the King

Padre Pio

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life and without You I am without fervor.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light and without You I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much and alway be in Your company.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, as poor as my soul is I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of Love.

Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late and the day is coming to a close and life passes, death, judgment and eternity approaches. It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You. It is getting late and death approaches, I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows. O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!

Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You.

Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.

Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love.

Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for, Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.

With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen.

Our Lady of Sorrows

1. The Prophecy of Simeon
2. The Flight into Egypt
3. The Loss of the Holy Child at Jerusalem
4. Mary meets Jesus Carrying the Cross
5. Mary witnesses the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
6. Mary Receives the Dead Body of Her Son
7. The Burial of Her Son and Closing of the Tomb.

St. Therese

I know I don't have the time to do a nice entry on St. Therese whose feast day it is today (I didn't have time to do one this weekend for the feast of the angels), but Esther has a nice entry up.



I had been using a cropped version of this picture as my avatar on a couple of message boards (still am on one). My Dad wanted a copy of the picture though because he said she reminded of me. And I've had a few people tell me that they thought she was a relative of mine. I don't see the resemblance. My middle name is Therese though.

St. Basil the Great

My 2007 Saint for the Year of devotion is St. Basil the Great, whose feast day happens to be tomorrow. A very coincidental thing (coincidence or God-incidence as mom would say) is that tomorrow I'm going in to have my wisdom teeth removed. I'm absolutely petrified by it. As irrational as it sounds I'm convinced that once they put me under I'm never going to wake up again. I hate having anything to do with my teeth to begin with, but being knocked out is just pushing me over the edge. I've forbidden my family to speak about it since we found out I was having it done a month ago because every time someone talks about it or I think about it I start crying. I'm just not a very strong person, and this has me scared like crazy.

St. Basil pray for me!

Pro-Life New Year's Resolutions for 2007

Pro-Life New Year's Resolutions for 2007

Yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Innocents in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. This feast celebrates the deaths of innocent children who literally died for (in place of) Christ and whom the Church has venerated as martyrs officially since about the sixth century. Their feast day has always been located in the Octave of Christmas to emphasize their intimate connection with the baby Jesus. We are reminded on this day of both the fragility of new life and our obligation to protect it and so it is fitting that as we enter this new year I challenge each of you to renew your commitment to the defense of innocent life.

First, contemplate. The Holy Innocents' feast day serves both as a reminder of a tragic historical event and as a grim reality check for those of us who live in this society where abortion is practiced as casually as shopping! A short moment of reflection on this scriptural passage will help us to discern the parallels to the abortion industry in our society: the irrational command of a powerful person to kill, the executioners with blood on their hands, the suffering of the innocent victims and the secondary victims who were scarred forever by the deaths of their children. We also contemplate the truth that "where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more," (Rom 5:20) in order to see how God brings good out of so much evil.

Second, pray. Pray for those who are blinded to this reality and ask God to grant them the grace of conversion. Remember that we are all tainted by this massacre of innocents because our lives are intertwined with the culture of death, so we must pray with humility for the gift of perseverance to bring it to an end. Prayer will bring the power of Christ to bear on this sinful institution of death. He alone can transform the world.

Third, act. God does not work through prayers only. We are His hands and feet in this world so our pro-life resolutions for 2007 have to be very direct and specific; if you are not sure what to do, I have given some suggestions below on how to meet the challenges set before us:

1. Find the local abortion clinic in your community and make a promise to pray there at least three times in 2007 - minimum.

2. While you're at it, find the local pregnancy care center and make contact with them. It is likely they are in need of volunteers. Be one of them! They all operate on shoe-string budgets too so support them!

3. Speak up in some forum and defend life, be it on the internet, in a letter to the editor, or in conversations with friends, family and co-workers. Of course they will call you a fanatic! It does not matter. You must think of that Day when the Lord will ask you what you did to defend His precious little ones. You must be able to say you spoke out on their behalf.

4. Boycott the businesses that fund the death industry. These groups don't deserve one dollar of our hard-earned money if they are material cooperators in the killing of innocents. The most reputable boycott group that I know of is Life Decisions International whose detailed corporate boycott list you can order from their website (www.fightpp.org) and who provide ongoing insight into the activities of Planned Parenthood.

I'm sure there's much more we can all do, but these things are good for starters! I will be praying for you and your families as we finish this year of pro-life election losses and enter into a year full of hope and promise. May the Holy Innocents guide our commitment to be more active in saving their innocent brothers and sisters!

Sincerely Yours in Christ,


Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International

Human Life International
Fr. Euteneuer's Blog - Spirit & Life

Our Lady of Guadalupe

A Prayer for Abortion Victims

Prayer for all victims of abortion. May those involved in abortions be reconciled to God and may the innocent dead be saved.

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.

So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process.
So today does abortion killing many innocent unborn children and exploiting many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ.

Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven.

O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs. We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!

Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.

We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers.

Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love. May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

Christ the King

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

Corpus Christi Part Deux

I thought my post on our Corpus Christi procession left a little bit to be desired, so I thought I would expand a little bit on it.

In attendance were about 12 Knights of Columbus members, 8 or more altar boys (that's right, altar boys not altar girls), and 3 priests. Our parish really has only one priest at this time, he is retired, and he has taken over the parish only temporarily until we are assigned a new priest after our wonderful pastor passed away in February. The other two priests were just visiting.

As I wrote last night, normally the procession is outside, but the weather was rainy so they had it inside. I was really looking forward to taking pictures this year, but because it was inside I felt a little uncomfortable taking so many pictures inside and I ended up missing the actual procession in photographs. It really was a wonderful sight to see though. Hopefully I will be able to take pictures next year outside with a new pastor.

So here are the rest of my pictures, sorry they aren't any better, but I never claimed to be a good photographer. Oh and all pictures are clickable to get a slightly bigger image.


You can kind of make out a couple of the altar boys in this picture they are the ones wearing white and red.

Corpus Christi

Our parish had a Corpus Christi procession today. Normally it is outside but today it was raining and misting so we had it inside. Here is a picture I took.