Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Well I am well on my way to becoming a Catholic. Well kind of. This would be so much easier if I could feel like I have found what I am looking for. I think the “loss” of my second possible husband as left me feeling… well lost. I have confirmed that one crush has no interest in me. That’s cool he will remain my “good” friend. I think I will see where I stand with the other; however, I am sure it will be the same. There are some who show an interest in me, but they are not what I seem to be looking for. I have been unable to find a Christian little lone a Catholic who likes me. So where does that leave me? Well I am not sure. I guess I will have to pray it through. There are so many things to take into consideration.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

RCIA

For those of you who do not know, I am in the RCIA class. I have been doing really well until last night. We started the first discussion about Mary. This was hard for me because I was not quite ready for it. I figured that I would have some time to read up on the matter and pray before it hit me; however, Sister Diane pushed the class a week ahead w/o me realizing it. I was quite upset. I am not sure why there is such a HUGE problem with this topic. I was able to reach a friend on the phone and he assured me that this is natural. I guess I will believe him because he is also a convert and very smart.
Well anyway, if any of you have any tips, let me know… again I am posting as if people actually read this. Well maybe someone will and have the “mystic” answer for me.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Yoko would be SO proud

From some other blogs I found out what language, I should learn. Mine was Japanese. This information is going to make my friend Yoko VERY happy since she has been telling me that for YEARS! LOL

You Should Learn Japanese
You're cutting edge, and you are ready to delve into wacky Japanese culture.From Engrish to eating contests, you're born to be a crazy gaijin. Saiko!
What Language Should You Learn?

Personal Time

I have a problem. Now I do feel confident to write these words since I am sure that there are very few people live who will ever read them. Therefore, I feel that I can ‘talk’ freely about my feelings for a moment.

I am very single, as in, I do not even have any interested parties (that I know of) who would enjoy the opportunity to see me smile at them in that special way. Though I do have two guys that make me smile when I think of them. It is just that I have never been able to tell them that. They are my friends and I would not want to risk loosing my friendship with them. They are also both Catholics. I have wondered on occasion, how much my RCIA willingness has stemmed from the idea that maybe… just maybe… they would notice me.

This is such a non-reason to take the classes, and I know that this is not my sole or even main reason to take the class. However, I tend to over analyze things. I wonder if or when I should tell these guys that I like them. I have left notes for them about how much I care, but then again males are generally poor at picking up hints. One lives in a different state with no plans of moving here in the near future. The other is quite young (4 years younger) and he does not seem to be able to keep his mind on one subject for more than 10 seconds, no matter what the subject.

All well, maybe someday God will send me a leader for my future family. One who is willing and able to lead me in the way a man should. Maybe then I will be able to bow to the leadership of him and more importantly my God.
Well now that I have written more than I have in 3 months LOL, I will say good-bye. I hope God inspires me to write more about these topics as I move through RCIA, life, and challenges.

Why

WHY?

I know this is a long time coming; however, I was planning to make it monumental. I was going to have scripture notes and exc. However, I found that it was NOT that hard.

So I guess it comes down to the idea of WHY. Why did God want to create man with the free will to commit these evils?

This is a “simple” answer. We are God’s children. I started to read the Bible finding lots of passages and praying. I then was wrapped up in personal issues such as schoolwork and keeping my little niece safe. Then God gave me the answer. Here it is.

Personal scale: now I am not personally versed in this part because I do not have children of my own. However, I have it on good authority that bearing, rising, and loving children/ offspring can be very challenging. A good parent does everything possible to ensure the best environment for the children; however, they tend to be rebellious and troublesome. I have asked these non-perfect parents “Was it worth it?” The answer was always yes. This came from parents of children of all ages from infants to adults with their own children.

Worldwide scale: since the world is so harsh, some have said that we should weep when we have children and rejoice when people pass (this was a memory from childhood at church camp, she was on of my ‘friends’ for the week). With so many inflections that can be placed upon the child, it does seem to be cold to bring one into the world. However, again it is worth it. Some grow and love God, parents, and neighbors. They make WONDERFUL additions to society. It would truly be sad to lose these wonderful creatures just because of one’s perspective on the world. Hay that one child could make a difference in the world for the better.

God’s scale: He is the perfect parent with the most perfect hopes for all of his children. If it is worth everything in the world for that one kiss for a non-perfect human, how much more is God glorified by every “I love you” or smile from his children? It is not that he looks at the world as bad, because he created a good world with good creatures. Every time his children find him and say, “I love you” in any number of ways… he is overjoyed.

This may not answer your deep questions; however, this has set my heart at ease. It has lifted me up and “set me free” from the sadness of why.

Count Clement August von Galen: bishop of Munster

I heard in Mass today, yes the protestant is going to mass now. That the Vatican has done something with bishop of Munster: Count Clement August von Galen. I think he is now in the canonization process or something. I could not quite follow what the priest said because I do not know enough about the process. :( However, he sounds like a really nifty person. Here is some information about him...

Faith and Fatherland
From the beginning the Catholic Church was one of the main targets of Hitler's policy of annihilation; the totalitarian aims of National Socialism would not tolerate any opposition or allow any other organization to compete for the loyalty of the German people.
The Gestapo were active everywhere, even to the extent of intruding into confessionals to trap priests into making unguarded statements. Priests were kept under active surveillance. As a consequence hundreds of clergy were arraigned before Nazi courts of summary jurisdiction and condemned to death or internment in concentration camps.1
In Dachau alone, no fewer than 2,771 priests were imprisoned, of whom at least 1,000 died from hunger, disease or ill-treatment. Acts of brutality, torture and murder were commonplace in these camps, yet they were the context of daily acts of heroism, as in the case of Maximillian Kolbe in Auschwitz, or the secret and daring ordination in Dachau of Karl Leisner, the young seminarian from Munich.2
The majority of the priests interned in Dachau were of Polish origin; however, apart from German nationals, there were large numbers of French, Czechs, and Austrians. Dachau was host to priests from all over Nazi occupied Europe. Seminarians from these same countries were drafted in as part of forced labour gangs in Germany.
No less than 4,000 priests were put to death during these years, either as "political saboteurs," or, after incarceration in concentration camps, by hanging, starvation, mishandling, lack of medical aid, or as victims of medical experiments including euthanasia. It is a story of courageous and heroic resistance against the overwhelming power of a police state.3
In this context also the memory of a great German ecclesiastic deserves to be recalled for his heroism at another level. Count Clement August von Galen was bishop of Munster, the ecclesiastical capital of the strongly Catholic region of Westphalia and the Lower Rhine in Northwest Germany. He took a consistently courageous stand against the policies of Hitler and the Gestapo, and was unrelenting in his criticism of them. His immense prestige at home and abroad was what ultimately saved him from the extermination that many of his own priests suffered.
At that time one of the directors of propaganda in the British War Office was Brig. General R. L. Sedgwick, a convert to Catholicism, he recalls that the bishop's sermons provided the War Office with the most powerful anti-Hitler propaganda.4 During the war the BBC sent out transmissions specifically targeting the forty million German speaking Catholics. Day after day the radio broadcasts from London drove home the point of Hitler's hatred for Catholicism. The bishop's sermons, he says, were like manna from heaven in the propaganda war against the Nazis. The BBC transmissions, drawing on these sermons, also endeavored to show that National Socialism constituted a grave threat to the family and the religious ideals which it enshrined.

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=353

There is also information here about: family background, him being the bishop, The struggle against National Socialism, His greatest hour, Battle against euthanasia, Destruction of the cathedral, and Home to die.

In addition, this quote was part of the message today. Though the source the priest used was longer.

BISHOP OF MÜNSTER PROTESTS KILLINGS
Never under any circumstances may a human being kill an innocent person apart from war and legitimate self-defense. If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill 'unproductive' fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail!... woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill 'unproductive' fellow humans-- and even if it only initially affects the poor defenseless mentally ill--then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people.... Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other 'unproductive' people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the 'unproductive', who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves. Who will be able to trust his physician any more? He may report his patient as 'unproductive' and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed. Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's holy commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill', which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.From Burleigh and Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (New York, 1991), pp. 152-53.


http://www.holocaust-trc.org/bishop.htm

Ok, I hope that you enjoy the reading.