Friday, April 20, 2007

Limbo...how low can you go?

Before you read the below article, you should open this link either in a separate window or tab, but only do that if you have more than dial up speed.

Okay, new link: I've been waiting for this story about limbo. It clears up a lot of confusion, especially among certain old faishioned catholics that believed we still taught limbo was a truth. It was a theological opinion that was never verified by the universal church. I was especially appreciative of the statements...

"Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for "the little ones," it said."Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision," the document said."We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge"

Thursday, April 19, 2007

One more thing

It's VEISHEA here at Iowa State so I again ask for your prayers. VEISHEA is the end of the year celebration that began as a way of honoring the accomplishments of the different colleges of Iowa State University and ended up being a time when ISU students get way too drunk before the rigor of finals. Last year, it really was a wonderful celebration, largely because of the planning efforts of President Geoffrey and his committee. It was a great idea to move the four stages with bands playing until late in the evening far far away from the bars! But, this is now the second year and I hope we can avoid the riots that happened a number of years ago. Again, please keep us in your prayers.

One of the things that I love about the Catholic Church

I love the universality of the Catholic church. The name, catholic, means universal. So, when a Korean student does something at Viginia Tech, the Korean bishops offer apologies. Here's the story.

Cardinal Cheong said, "As a South Korean, I can't help feeling apologetic about how a Korean man caused such a shocking incident." I think this shows the positive influence the Catholic Church can have throughout the world in building bridges.

Reason for absence

Sorry to my loyal readers for missing a few days this past week. I ended up with a doozy of a cold after Easter that just won't go away. It's starting to let up right now so I hope to start writing again more often about the church and stuff.

I'm disappointed that I didn't get last week's homily up because I thought it was good. I told about a friend that had to close a church and then a year and a half later, someone called him because he was angry that "his church" had been closed down. I used that to talk about Thomas. He wasn't present for the first time Jesus was there and, so, it makes him angry. The full church's of Easter quickly peter down to the normal crowds of the second Sunday of Easter. I talked about how the apostles used Thomas anger to get him to show up the next week when Jesus was there. We are the apostles who are present both weeks. We are sent by Jesus to reach out to those who are hurting to take them to Jesus. Who are the Thomas' in our life that need to be invited into our upper room.

Of course, it was a little longer than that but I got a lot of compliments and I hope it challenges my wonderful little rural church of Sts. Peter and Paul to reach out and find some folks who haven't been baptized in order to have Easter vigil out there again next year. It was just so awesome last year and I heard from people that they missed it this year. I hope we can get it organized for next year.

2 L B: Christianity is not a pithy pop song

  Friends Peace be with you.  As some of you know, the series The Chosen has been released in theaters. Last week, I had the opportunit...