Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year



I'll be on blogger vacation until January 9th. Thank you all, over 1,200,000 visitors from all over the world who have come to visit this blog. This has been my Advent meditation for many years John 3:16 (For God So loved the World) , John 6 (Bread of Life Discourse) and John 17 (Prayer of the High Priest) in sequence. If you are looking for more Iganciophile stuff, please check out my side bar, I have linked well over 400 hundred Jesuit blogs, websites, books and essays. See you January 9th!

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Joseph I hope you have a wonderful vacation.I have enjoyed writing about Father Joseph Perri S.J. See you in January.

Anonymous said...

Hope you enjoy your well deserved break, Joseph.
Thanks for all the hard work. It is much appreciated.
Wishing you many Christmas blessings, and a great 2009!

Anonymous said...

Joseph,

I understand the need for a well deserved vacation. I've been enjoying one until recently and am back with a vengeance.

Enjoy your vacation and I will most certainly welcome your return.

God bless,

Brother Juniper

Maria said...

Thank you so very much for all of your posts. Your bloggery is prodigious!I cant tell you how much I enjoy your blog. I cannot belive you have three children under 5. I thought maybe you were retired. You have earned a respite. Here is a little blog gift from me--Karl Rahner's thoughts on the Christ Child:

"And now God says to us what he has already said to the world as a whole through his grace-filled birth: " I am here. I am with you. I am your life. I am the gloom of your daily routine. I weep your tears. I am your joy. Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. When the totals of your plans and of your life's experiences do not balance out evenly , I am the unsolved remainder. And I know that this remainder, which makes you so frantic, is in reality my love that you do not understand. I am present in your needs.

This reality--incomprehensible wonder of my limitless love--I have sheltered safely in the cold stable of your world. I am there. I no longer go away from this world, even if you do not see me now...I am there. It is Christmas. Light the candles. They have more right to exist than all the darkness. It is Christmas. Christmas that lasts forever."

Jean-Francois Thomas s.j said...

Dear Joseph,

Indeed, you deserve to spend time with your wife and children ! May this Christmas be filled with peace and joy in your heart. And many thanks for the wonderful work you are doing with this blog. with my faithful prayer.

brian said...

Joesph,

Have a blessed Christmas season!!

Maria said...

I can't believe another year has passed. Your blog is such a great witness, Jospeh. I don't know how I will manage until you return--seriously. lol. I will miss you but wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Badger Catholic said...

A blessed Christmas to you and your family!

Jean-Francois Thomas S.J said...

Many thanks for your great work with this site. May the Lord bless you and your loved ones during this Christmas Season and in 2011. With my faithful prayer

Anonymous said...

I don't come to this blog anymore because it's making some of the same grave mistakes my Jesuit professors made.

The results of their mistakes are quite evident in my high school graduation class. Once recognized as one of the top 50 high schools in the United States, we were all proud for the Jesuits and their accomplishment.

Some forty years later I am the only one who has identified himself as Catholic in my graduating class. Three have identified themselves as protestants. The rest are no longer believers or prefer not to say.

The Jesuits didn't effectively defend the faith.

TonyD said...

Anonymous 8:33,

I don’t know that the Catholic Church has a satisfactory definition of “defending the faith”.

In my religious studies class, taught by a Jesuit, we spent several days studying the Nicene Creed. And Jesuits, when their faith is attacked, often base their defense on their belief in the Nicene Creed.

In that class I learned that when one gets past the superficial, “inspiring” history of the Church, one discovers that the very definition of faith has not been constant. There have been inconsistent and contradictory statements by Popes, councils, Bishops, Church Saints, and Church theologians for as long as the Church has existed. Along with these often self-serving perspectives, there has often been a willingness to enforce them with torture and even death.

When one tries to find something consistent in the Catholic Church, the most consistent Church statement has been the Nicene Creed – and even that is a product of a committee of “man”. So a deep understanding of Catholicism takes us full circle back to relying on God and scripture, in spite of any Church statements. I believe the strength of the Church lies in its teaching of the values of God and Christ. That is not to say that all its teaching reflects those values.

In the end, “defending the faith” is not equivalent to defending current Church positions and interpretations. And when I reflect on the values held by Christ and Prophets, I would argue that “defending the faith” is not the real goal of religion anyway.

And this blog plays an important role. It allows us to reflect on these important issues. So I’m grateful to Joe Fromm for running this blog.

Anonymous said...

Joseph - Thought I would leave you with some news about a great Jesuit Priest. Father Francis Budovic just turned 90 and is still celebrating mass at our parish. He is a wonderful Jesuit priest and I have been told that he was Fr Hardons spiritual director...Perhaps you could do a piece on him. Here is the website of our parish. Thanks http://www.saintcyrils.org/

Joseph Fromm said...

Thanks for all the great comments, it is truly a privilege to have such great readership.

Joe

Anonymous said...

Two articles should be read together :
More Jesuit Dissent

Cardinal Burke: Catholic Universities Must Be Catholic to be 'Worthy of the Name'
http://www.catholic.org/college/story.php?id=39604

Pro-infanticide Russ Feingold to teach at Marquette University
http://badgercatholic.blogspot.com/2011/01/pro-infanticide-russ-feingold-to-teach.html

Anonymous said...

Happy Christmas and a merry New Year, Frommage.

secondeve said...

Dear Joseph,
Have a great christmas season with your family! Thank you for this blog which I appreciate so much!
Merry christmas
p.s. "Frommage"?- hilarious!

Maria said...

I would like to share with you the single most important lesson I have learned in my fifty years in the priesthood. What is that lesson? In one sentence, I have learned with St. Paul that there is nothing in life worth living for except to know and proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified...

We believe there must be a deep meaning to the cross. Why? Because God the Creator became one of His own creatures in order to be able to be crucified.

Who is our hope?


In whom can we finally trust? In Jesus Christ and Him crucified.


Jesus Christ crucified is our highest motive for love.


God who was scourged and crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross, He died on the cross because He loved us.


For the love of those whom God has put into our lives: difficult people, unkind people, thoughtless people.


Why? So that by loving them we might proclaim to them our love for Jesus crucified.
Lord Jesus Christ, you died on your cross out of love for me. Give me the grace to die on my cross because I have proclaimed you, the Incarnate Truth, to everyone who enters my life. Amen.
~Servant of God John Anthony Hardon SJ

Oh, but it is a mighty tall order.

We keep our shoulders to the wheel.

God bless you my friend. A light shines in the darkness ;)

Qualis Rex said...

Have a blessed Christmas and New year

Maria said...

“…Finally, what is the lesson? The lesson of Christmas and the Eucharist must be obvious by now. God does nothing in vain. He did not choose to become man nor does He remain man in our midst except that He wants to evoke from us something of the same kind of love that He showed during His life on earth and still shows us in His life in the Eucharist. Jesus Christ gives us His Flesh and Blood to adore, worship and nourish our souls on, so that we might live with His life. What He wants us to do therefore, and this is the lesson, is to love Him as He has been loving us.

How has He been loving us? First of all, He loves us in simplicity. Is there anything more simple than a child, or anything more simple than the round wafer of the Eucharist? God wants us to love Him in simplicity. Above all, we must have no duplicity with God. He wants our whole heart, not just part of it. We are to love Him, therefore, simply, unqualifyingly, totally.God wants us to love Him humbly.

Is there anything more lowly than a baby? They are speechless, helpless; they must be fed and carried from place to place. And is there anything more unpretentious than what seems to be a piece of bread and a sip of wine? Yet as we know, real humility is always greatness hiding itself out of love. What a hard lesson for us to learn, to love this God of ours humbly.

We are to love God and, allowing Him to do with us as He pleases, we are to love God obediently. When God came into the world, He came as Scripture tells us, obedient first of all to His Father's Will; then, as a Child and through His growing manhood, He was obedient to His mother Mary and to Joseph. In the Eucharist, too, He is totally submissive. The moment a duly ordained priest pronounces the words of Consecration, Jesus Christ comes down on the altar, He obeys. This is our faith. And perhaps this is the hardest lesson to learn, to love God obediently. It means, as we know, obeying God not only interiorly or according to our own understanding or interpretation of God's Will, it means obeying God as that divine Will is explained and interpreted for us by His very fallible and weak human creatures.

These are the lessons that God wants us to learn from Christmas as a historical event and from Christmas as a perennial reality because, as you see, the Eucharist is Christmas. Believing in Christ's Real Presence, we have the grave responsibility of invoking, in faith, this Jesus, begging Him, pleading with Him that He might grant those graces—if need be, miraculous graces—that the sinful world He came to redeem so desperately needs. Jesus redeemed the world, but it is not redeemed unless we cooperate with His grace. And we must cooperate with His grace not only for ourselves, but for the whole world, so that Jesus' coming into the world will not, for any soul, have been in vain.

Servant of God John A. Hardon SJ

Maria said...

Mary, the Mother of God

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI instituted January 1 as the feast of Mary,
Mother of God. This was to replace the feast of Our Lord’s
Circumcision, and place the Latin Rite in accord with the Eastern
tradition of the Catholic Church. It would also supplant the former
feast of the Maternity of Mary on October 11.

The Holy Father gave five reasons for instituting the new feast. Each
reason tells us what we believe when we profess our faith in Mary’s
Divine Maternity, and how this mystery should affect our daily lives:

Mary’s role in the Mystery of Salvation

Through Mary We Received the Author of Life

Adoration of Mary’s Son, the Newborn Prince of Peace

Meditate on the Angel’s Message at Bethlehem

Implore Mary for Peace in the World

To read the whole article go here:
www.therealpresence.org/archives/Mariology/Mariology_019.htm



Hail, sweetest Mary,
our true hope and our life,
O sweet relief!
O Mary, flower of all virgins,
pray for us to Christ, O Mary. Alleluia!

Lauridsen’s Ave Maria @:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kPqIS7GKf0U

Hail Mary on this your Feast Day!

Happy New Year Gary! Thank you for everything you did in 2013. Our Lady thanks you as well :)