The Dragon and the Bear begin????

China-Russia Yellow Sea naval drills begin

China and Russia launched joint naval exercises Sunday that highlight warming ties between their militaries and growing cooperation in international affairs.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the six days of drills feature simulated anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and search-and-rescue operations, including electronic countermeasures and other sensitive technologies.
Retired major general Yin Zhuo said it shows a high degree of trust between the sides.
"It's an excellent exchange for China to be able to drill jointly in such sensitive areas," Yin told CCTV.

China's Defense Ministry said China was sending two submarines and 16 ships to take part, including destroyers, escort vessels and hospital ships. The deputy chiefs of the countries' navies oversaw the start of drills in the northeastern Chinese port of Qingdao, the home of China's northern fleet.
The two militaries hold frequent exchanges, despite recent disputes over Chinese copying of Russian military technology such as Sukhoi jet fighters. China was a key customer for the former Soviet arms industry, but recent technological advances at home have made it far less dependent on Russian weaponry.

Much of that cooperation takes place within the confines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a grouping of Central Asian states that seeks to check U.S. influence in the region and began holding joint drills in 2005.
Formerly Cold War rivals for leadership of the communist world, China and Russia have since found common ground in countering liberal democratizing trends across Asia and Eastern Europe and frequently vote against Western initiatives in the United Nations Security Council.
Most recently, they have united to block any U.N. actions on Syrian violence that could lead to some form of humanitarian intervention, a prospect both nations abhor.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/04/22/2160331/china-russia-yellow-sea-naval.html#storylink=cpy

The Faithful Must Adore The Eucharistic Lord To Make Reparation!

A Cancer at the Heart of the Church

How and why does this sort of thing happen? It causes me a piercing sorrow because it is emblematic of the widespread loss of faith in the adorable mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist that is a cancer at the heart of the Church.

The Erosion of Faith

Several years ago, in the context of a course I was teaching, I suggested that the erosion of faith in the Most Holy Eucharist was, in fact, fostered by a number of liturgical and disciplinary changes:

– Minimalistic approach to the fast before Holy Communion.

– The offering of the Holy Sacrifice by the priest facing the congregation.

– The removal of the communion rail and obfuscation of the sanctuary as “the holy place.”

– The relegation of the tabernacle to the side of the sanctuary.

– The reception of Holy Communion standing, and in the hand.

– The introduction of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.

Taken together, these changes sent a chilling message to the Catholic faithful (and even to confused clergy): “Folks, the Blessed Sacrament just isn’t all that we thought it was.”

The Protestantization of Catholic Worship

Let it be noted, en passant, that while all of these changes are a cause of scandal to Eastern Orthodox Christians, not one of them would be considered offensive to mainstream Protestants. When one begins to worship like a Protestant, one begins to believe like a Protestant.

Ignorance

The cumulative effect of these changes, compounded by a woefully deficient sacramental catechesis and by certain lamentable theological, liturgical, and moral sensibilities in seminaries during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, is the current Eucharistic Crisis. Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004) remains, in most dioceses, a document that is virtually unknown. Pope John Paul II’s “Year of the Eucharist” seems to have faded into oblivion; his EncyclicalEcclesia de Eucharistia (2003), and his Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum, Domine (2004) seem not to have been assimilated at the parish level. Pope Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis (2007) is, in many places, unknown.

Adoration and Reparation

Adoration in a spirit of reparation is more than ever necessary. Where are the adorers and reparators who will console the Heart of Jesus, wounded by the irreverence, coldness, indifference, and sacrilege that He receives “in the house of them that loved Him,” and in the Sacrament of His Love?

As for the much discussed “reform of the reform,” might it not be a case of too little too late? Can anything apart from a Divine Intervention, a new sacerdotal Pentecost, obtained through the intercession of the Maternal Heart of Mary, bring about the change of heart that is needed?

In hard-hitting document Vatican launches clean-up of feminist nuns in United States

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has launched a 5-year reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States representing more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious (nuns) in the country. 

Based on a 2008 investigation into the nuns, the Vatican evaluation was candid, noting, “The current doctrinal and pastoral situation of the LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern.”

The CDF doctrinal assessment, released today, criticized positions espoused at LCWR annual assemblies and in its literature as well as the absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on pro-life issues, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

The CDF said that the documentation “reveals that, while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States.”

“Further,” the CDF report said, “issues of crucial importance in the life of the Church and society, such as the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching. Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the Bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”

The CDF said, “The Assessment reveals serious doctrinal problems which affect many in Consecrated life,” calling it a crisis “characterized by a diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration.”

The document listed the principal findings of the LCWR doctrinal assessment.

On LCWR annual assemblies, it said, “The talks, while not scholarly theological discourses per se, do have significant doctrinal and moral content with implications which often contradict or ignore magisterial teaching.”

On formation of religious superiors and formators, the CDF said, “Many of the materials prepared by the LCWR for these purposes (Occasional Papers, Systems Thinking Handbook) do not have a sufficient doctrinal foundation. These materials recommend strategies for dialogue, for example when sisters disagree about basic matters of Catholic faith or moral practice, but it is not clear whether this dialogue is directed towards reception of Church teaching.”

The Vatican said that it has appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle as its Archbishop Delegate for the initiative. Bishop Leonard Blair and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki also were named to assist in this effort.

The Vatican is attempting to present the measure as a friendly renewal.  However, even the initial announcement of the assessment in 2008 was greeted with severe hostility by leftist nuns in the U.S. The sternly-worded assessment document is not likely to be received with any greater enthusiasm.

The Prefect of the CDF Cardinal William Levada noted that the assessment is “aimed at fostering a patient and collaborative renewal.” 

Archbishop Sartain commented on his new role saying, “I am honored that the CDF has entrusted this important and sensitive work to me, because the ministry of religious sisters, especially here in the United States, is deeply respected and paramount to the mission of the Church. Just as the LCWR can be a vital resource in many ways for its members, I hope to be of service to them and to the Holy See as we face areas of concern to all.”

The intransigence and betrayal of many of the women religious in the United states toward Catholic values have been keenly felt in recent months by Catholic bishops – particularly in the fight over religious freedom and abortion funding in President Obama’s health care law, in which religious sisters have played a key role, in Obama’s favor.

That betrayal has also been registered in the Vatican. Cardinal Raymond Burke head of the Vatican’s highest court - the Apostolic Signitura - in a speech earlier this year, denounced “the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious.”

Burke asked: “Who ever could have imagined that religious congregations of pontifical right would openly organize to resist and attempt to frustrate an apostolic visitation, that is, a visit to their congregations carried out under the authority of the Vicar of Christ on earth, to whom all religious are bound by the strongest bonds of loyalty and obedience?”

“Who could imagine that consecrated religious would openly, and in defiance of the bishops as successors of the Apostles, publicly endorse legislation containing provisions which violate the natural moral law in its most fundamental tenets, the safeguarding and promoting of innocent and defenseless life, and fail to safeguard the demands of free exercise of conscience for healthcare workers?” he added.

 by John-Henry Westen

The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the Early Church

This reading on the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist as it was taught in the Early Church is used in the Roman Catholic liturgy's Office of Readings on the Saturday in the Octave of Easter-tide (Cat. 22 Mystagogica 4, 3-6 PG 33. 1098-1106)  Its author, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, was bishop of Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century and one of the most important sources we have for how the early church celebrated the sacraments during this era as well as what the early Church believed about the sacraments.  In his Jerusalem Catecheses, from which this excerpt comes, he instructs new Christians in the days immediately before and after their initiation into the life of the Church at the Easter Vigil.  For this reason, many excerpts from his Catecheses are used in the Church's liturgy from Easter to Pentecost. 

On the night he was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: “Take, eat: this is my body”. He took the cup, gave thanks and said: “Take, drink: this is my blood”. Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, This is my blood, who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood?

Therefore, it is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and blood with him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.

Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life in you. This horrified them and they left him. Not understanding his words in a spiritual way, they thought the Savior wished them to practice cannibalism.

Under the old covenant there was showbread, but it came to an end with the old dispensation to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is bread from heaven and the cup of salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the body, the Word, to the sanctification of the soul.

Do not, then, regard the Eucharistic Elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact the body and blood of the Lord, as he himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you, be strong in faith.

You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man’s heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.

May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that be contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. ~St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church

For more readings from the Fathers on the Real Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, see also:

Sunday Eucharist in the Early Church, Saint Justin Martyr

Eucharist as a Pledge of Resurrection by Saint Irenaeus

This is My Body by Saint Ambrose

Novena to Blessed little Margaret: 9th Day:

Ninth Day:

 
O Blessed Margaret of Castello,
Through your suffering and misfortune,
You became sensitive
To the sufferings of others.
Your heart reached out
To everyone in trouble –
The sick, the hungry, the dying prisoners.
Obtain for me the grace
To recognize Jesus in everyone
With whom I come into contact,
Especially in the poor,
The wretched, the unwanted!
Obtain for me also
The special favor which I now ask
Through your intercession with God.

Let us pray…

O God by whose Will
The blessed virgin, Margaret,
Was blind from birth,
That the eyes of her mind
Being inwardly enlightened
She might think without ceasing
On You alone;
Be the light of our eyes,
That we may be able
To flee the shadows in this world,
And reach the home
Of never-ending light.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
Glorify your servant blessed Margaret,
By granting the favor
We so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
To God’s Will,
For His Honor and Glory
And the salvation of souls.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Prayer
O my God, I thank you
For having given
Blessed Margaret of Castello
To the world as an example
Of the degree of holiness
That can be attained by anyone
Who truly loves you,
Regardless of physical abnormalities.
In today’s perverted culture,
Margaret would have, most likely,
Never been born;
Death through abortion
Being preferable to life,
Especially life
In an ugly distorted twisted body.
But Your ways are not the world’s ways…
And so it was Your Will
That Margaret would be born into the world
With just such a malformed body.
It is Your way that uses our weakness
To give testimony to Your power.
Margaret was born blind,
So as to see You more clearly;
A cripple, so as to lean on You completely;
Dwarfed in physical posture,
So as to become a giant in the spiritual order;
Hunch-backed,
So as to more perfectly resemble
The twisted, crucified body of Your Son.
Margaret’s whole life
Was an enactment of the words
Expressed by Paul:
“So I shall be very happy
To make my weaknesses my special boast
So that the power of Christ may stay over me
And that is why I am content
With my weaknesses,
And with insults, hardships,
Persecutions and the agonies
I go through for Christ’s sake.
For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:10).

I beseech you, O God,
To grant through the intercession
Of Blessed Margaret of Castello,
That all the handicapped …
And who among us is not?…
All rejected, all unwanted of the world
May make their weaknesses
Their own special boast
So that your power may stay over them
Now and forever. Amen.

Blessed Margaret of Castello, pray for us.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…

SHORT NOVENA PRAYER

O God, by Whose Will the blessed
virgin Margaret was blind from birth,
that the eyes of her mind being
inwardly enlightened she might think
without ceasing on You alone, be
the light of our eyes, that we may
be able to flee the shadows of this
world, and reach the home of never-
ending light. We ask this through
Christ, our Lord.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to
the Father.

Prayer for Canonization

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, glorify your
servant blessed Margaret, by granting
  the favor we so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
to God's Will, for His honor and
glory and the salvation of souls.

Novena to Blessed little Margaret: 8th Day:

Eigth Day:
O Blessed Margaret of Castello,
How it must have hurt
When your parents abandoned you!
Yet you learned from this
That all earthly love and affection,
Even for those who are closest,
Must be sanctified.
And so, despite everything,
You continued to love your parents –
But now you loved them in God.
Obtain for me the grace
That I might see
All my human loves and affections
In their proper perspective…
In God and for God. Obtain for me also
The special favor which I now ask
Through your intercession with God.

Let us pray…

O God by whose Will
The blessed virgin, Margaret,
Was blind from birth,
That the eyes of her mind
Being inwardly enlightened
She might think without ceasing
On You alone;
Be the light of our eyes,
That we may be able
To flee the shadows in this world,
And reach the home
Of never-ending light.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
Glorify your servant blessed Margaret,
By granting the favor
We so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
To God’s Will,
For His Honor and Glory
And the salvation of souls.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Novena to Blessed little Margaret: 7th Day:

Seventh Day:
 
O blessed Margaret of Castello,
You could have so easily
Become discouraged and bitter;
But, instead, you fixed your eyes
On the suffering Christ
And there you learned from Him
The redemptive value of suffering -
How to offer your pains and aches,
In reparation for sin
And for the salvation of souls.
Obtain for me the grace
To learn how to endure
My sufferings with patience.
Obtain for me also
The special favor which I now ask
Through your intercession with God.

Let us pray…

O God by whose Will
The blessed virgin, Margaret,
Was blind from birth,
That the eyes of her mind
Being inwardly enlightened
She might think without ceasing
On You alone;
Be the light of our eyes,
That we may be able
To flee the shadows in this world,
And reach the home
Of never-ending light.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
Glorify your servant blessed Margaret,
By granting the favor
We so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
To God’s Will,
For His Honor and Glory
And the salvation of souls.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Novena to Blessed little Margaret: 6th Day:

Sixth Day:

 
O Blessed Margaret of Castello,
Your miseries taught you
Better than any teacher
The weakness and frailty
Of human nature.
Obtain for me
The grace to recognize
My human limitations
And to acknowledge
My utter dependence upon God.
Acquire for me
That abandonment which leaves me
Completely at the mercy of God
To do with me whatsoever He wills.
Obtain for me also
The special favor which I now ask
Through your intercession with God.

Let us pray…

O God by whose Will
The blessed virgin, Margaret,
Was blind from birth,
That the eyes of her mind
Being inwardly enlightened
She might think without ceasing
On You alone;
Be the light of our eyes,
That we may be able
To flee the shadows in this world,
And reach the home
Of never-ending light.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
Glorify your servant blessed Margaret,
By granting the favor
We so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
To God’s Will,
For His Honor and Glory
And the salvation of souls.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Novena to Blessed little Margaret: 5th Day:

Fifth Day:
O Blessed Margaret of Castello,
In imitation of the Child Jesus,
Who was subject to Mary and Joseph,
You obeyed your father and mother,
Overlooking their unnatural harshness.
Obtain for me
That same attitude of obedience
Toward all those
Who have legitimate authority over me,
Most especially toward
The Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Obtain for me also
The special favor which I now ask
Through your intercession with God.

Let us pray…

O God by whose Will
The blessed virgin, Margaret,
Was blind from birth,
That the eyes of her mind
Being inwardly enlightened
She might think without ceasing
On You alone;
Be the light of our eyes,
That we may be able
To flee the shadows in this world,
And reach the home
Of never-ending light.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
Glorify your servant blessed Margaret,
By granting the favor
We so ardently desire.
This we ask in humble submission
To God’s Will,
For His Honor and Glory
And the salvation of souls.

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…