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MicroShifting Our Way Into a Deeper Practice of Prayer
Posted on 01/26/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
Gary Jansen, popular author of The 15-Minute Prayer Solution and Life Everlasting, knows how difficult it can be to create significant, sustainable change, especially in our spiritual lives. Sometimes we feel too overwhelmed to even start, and in other cases deepening our relationship with God seems like one more burden among the many we have from day-to-day. In his latest book, Jansen offers an answer that he calls “microshifting”—small, incremental adjustments to the way we think, act, work, and pray that gradually reshape our deeply rooted patterns. With a blend of masterful storytelling and dozens of practical tips, MicroShifts suggests simple, small changes across many aspects of our lives—everything from how we greet others, how we sleep, and how we deal with the incessant chatter in our own heads—to generate big results physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you are looking for steps to improve your life that are achievable, sustainable, and potentially life-changing, MicroShifts is…
St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN shared a post.
Posted on 01/25/2020 12:20 PM (St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN - Posts | Facebook)
St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN shared a photo.
Posted on 01/24/2020 16:58 PM (St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN - Posts | Facebook)
Archdiocesan Synod Prayer & Listening Sessions If you have not yet attended one of the Prayer & Listening Sessions sched...
Posted on 01/23/2020 20:23 PM (St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN - Posts | Facebook)
Archdiocesan Synod Prayer & Listening Sessions If you have not yet attended one of the Prayer & Listening Sessions scheduled at parishes throughout our Archdiocese, you still have many opportunities. Archbishop Hebda invites you to join him in prayer, discussion and discernment of where God is leading our Archdiocese. What’s working in our parishes and what’s not? Choose from any of the following dates and times: Tuesday, Jan. 28, 6-9 pm –Pax Christi, Eden Prairie... Saturday, Feb. 1, 9 am-12 pm –St. Stephen, Minneapolis (bilingual, English & Spanish) Tuesday, Feb. 11, 6-9 pm –Providence Academy, Plymouth Saturday, Feb. 15, 9 am-12 pm –Lumen Christi, St. Paul Tuesday, Feb. 18, 6-9 pm –St. Stephen, Anoka Thursday, Feb. 27, 6-9 pm –Our Lady of Grace, Edina Saturday, Feb. 29, 9 am-12 pm –St. Pius V, Cannon Falls Saturday, March 7, 9 am-12 pm –Transfiguration, Oakdale Saturday, March 14, 9 am-12 pm –St. Alphonsus, Brooklyn Center (bilingual, English & Spanish) For more information on the Synod Process, please visit www.archspm.org/synod
St. Francis de Sales and Our Battle with Addiction
Posted on 01/23/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
Today the Church honors a saint who deserves to be better known for his immense wisdom and practical insights that retain their relevance almost four hundred years after his death. St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was renowned as a pastor, spiritual director, and eloquent preacher. Though his spirituality flowed from a prayerful heart united to God, his guidance as a pastor of souls retains an attractive practical side that is fresh and compelling today. One example of this applied wisdom is found in his Introduction to the Devout Life, where he touches on a dynamic of conversion that speaks to all of us who battle with addictions of any kind. In this timeless classic, St. Francis teaches that in our battle with sin, we must be sorry before God for being addicted to sin but also come to hate what we are addicted to. This is key to our reform…
John the Baptist, First Victim of the Cancel Culture
Posted on 01/22/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:12-17) John has been arrested. The voice crying in the wilderness will soon be raised into eternity. John the Baptist was descended from a priestly line,…
“Dracula”: A Bland Betrayal of Vampire Lore
Posted on 01/21/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
Vampires are literary and cinematic representations of what St. Peter tells us about in Scripture: “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). But Christ has given us very basic means to resist Satan and his allies, and the best vampire stories play them up for edifying effect, whether the writers are believers or not. In fact, vampire fiction usually presupposes the truth of Christ and the Church’s sacraments, and the inevitable victory of the Holy Spirit over the enemies of the Gospel. Demons are scary, but they’re losers. Here’s one example: A vampire has to be welcomed into a home or building in order to enter. This is a particularly frequent deterrent in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, where bloodthirsty creatures of the night are routinely stopped in their tracks at the threshold of humans’ abodes.
Homely Holiness
Posted on 01/20/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
The eyes of faith behold a wonderful scene: that of a countless number of lay people, both women and men, busy at work in their daily life and activity, oftentimes far from view and quite unacclaimed by the world, unknown to the world’s great personages but nonetheless looked upon in love by the Father, untiring laborers who work in the Lord’s vineyard. — St. John Paul II I met him first in 1998. He has large calloused hands and dirty fingernails and speaks with a southern twang. He’s been fixing cars since he was a kid, under his dad’s tutelage. He works days, nights, and weekends to keep his small business open, and the enormous commitment has cost him a lot in life. Not all good, he admits. But, he once said, “it put food on the family table…
Atheism and the Problem of Beauty
Posted on 01/19/2020 18:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed)
A lot has been said about the “problem of pain.” Why, if God is both loving and all-powerful, is there still suffering in the world? The question is a challenge for Catholics, as for all theists. As believers, we have some sense of why a loving God would permit suffering. It’s easy enough to see that love is a good (the highest good, even), and that love requires free will. And it’s just a small step from there to see how that free will could be used in some dastardly ways. Likewise, it’s clear enough that a loving God might permit his creatures to suffer, in certain cases, for their (our) own good. This answer to the problem of pain is sensible but not satisfying. There’s no shaking that there’s still something out of whack, something not quite right about this world. Christianity hasn’t been shy about this point the…
St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN
Posted on 01/17/2020 17:48 PM (St Anne's Catholic Church Le Sueur MN - Posts | Facebook)