Welcome To My World!

THE GREATEST ADVICE
(Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life)

Don't date because you are desperate.
Don't marry because you are miserable.
Don't have kids because you think your genes are superior.
Don't philander because you think you are irresistible.

Don't associate with people you can't trust.
Don't cheat. Don't lie. Don't pretend.
Don't dictate because you are smarter.
Don't demand because you are stronger.

Don't sleep around because you think you are old enough & know better.
Don't hurt your kids because loving them is harder.
Don't sell yourself, your family, or your ideals.
Don't stagnate!

Don't regress.
Don't live in the past. Time can't bring anything or anyone back.
Don't put your life on hold for possibly Mr. Right.
Don't throw your life away on absolutely Mr. Wrong because your
biological clock is ticking.

Learn a new skill.
Find a new friend.
Start a new career.
Sometimes, there is no race to be won, only a price to be paid for some of life's more hasty decisions.

To terminate your loneliness, reach out to the homeless.
To feed your nurturing instincts, care for the needy.
To fulfill your parenting fantasies, get a puppy.
Don't bring another life into this world for all the wrong reasons.

To make yourself happy, pursue your passions & be the best of what you can be.
Simplify your life. Take away the clutter.
Get rid of destructive elements: abusive friends, nasty habits, and
dangerous liaisons.
Don't abandon your responsibilities but don't overdose on duty.

Don't live life recklessly without thought and feeling for your family.
Be true to yourself.
Don't commit when you are not ready.
Don't keep others waiting needlessly.

Go on that trip. Don't postpone it.
Say those words. Don't let the moment pass.
Do what you have to, even at society's scorn.

Write poetry.
Love Deeply.
Walk barefoot.
Dance with wild abandon.
Cry at the movies.

Take care of yourself. Don't wait for someone to take care of you.
You light up your life.
You drive yourself to your destination.
No one completes you - except YOU.

It isn't true that life does not get easier with age.
It only gets more challenging.
Don't be afraid. Don't lose your capacity to love.
Pursue your passions.

Live your dreams.
Don't lose faith in God.
Don't grow old. Just grow YOU!

When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back.
Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give to
someone is your time.
Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is
T-I-M-E because the essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves

God is good all the time!

or-
Saying nothing and wishing you had?

I guess the most important things are the hardest things to say.

Don't be afraid to tell someone you love them. If you do, they might
break your heart...if you don't, you might break theirs.

Have u ever decided not to become a couple because you were so afraid of losing what you already had with that person?

Your heart decides whom it likes and whom it doesn't.

You can't tell your heart what to do.

It does it on its own.... when you least suspect it, or even when you
don't want it to.

Have you ever wanted to love someone with everything you had, but that other person was too afraid to let you?

Too many of us stay walled up because we are too afraid to care too much...for fear that the other person does not care as much, or even at all.

Have you ever denied your feelings for someone because your fear of rejection was too hard to handle?

We tell lies when we are afraid...

afraid of what we don't know,

afraid of what others will think,
afraid of what will be found out about us.

But every time we tell a lie, the thing we fear grows stronger.

Life is all about risks and it requires you to jump.

Don't be a person who has to look back and wonder what they would have done, or could have had.

*What would you do if every time you fell in love you had to say
good-bye?

*What would you do if every time you wanted someone they would never be there?

*What would you do if your best friend died tomorrow and you
never got to tell them how you felt?
(even if it is that you don't care anymore)

*What would you do if you loved someone
more than ever and you couldn't have them?

*What would you do if you never got the chance to say I am friends with all of my family and they know I love them?

People live, but people die.
And I want to tell you that you are a friend.

If you died tomorrow (God Forbid), you would be in my heart.
Would I be in yours?

Remember, everyone needs a friend,

someday you might feel like you have
NO FRIENDS at all,

but take comfort in knowing

somebody out there cares about you
and always will.

AUGUST 13
ST. PONTIAN and ST. HIPPOLYTUS

A man named Maximinus became the emperor of Rome in 235. Almost immediately, he began a persecution of the Christians. One of the frequent punishments of bishops and priests was to be sent into exile to the dangerous and unhealthy mine fields in Sardinia, Italy. It was this very persecution that joined the two martyrs celebrated today.

St. Pontian became pope after the death of Urban I in the year 230. When Maximinus became emperor, Pontian served the Church with his sufferings in the mines of Sardinia.

The other saint on today's calendar is St. Hippolytus. He was a priest and a scholar in the church of Rome. He wrote many excellent works of theology and was a great teacher. Hippolytus had become frustrated with Pope St. Zephyrinus, who had been martyred in the year 217. Hippolytus felt that the pope had not been quick enough to stop people who were teaching errors. St. Zephyrinus' successor had been St. Callistus I. Hippolytus had not been pleased with the choice of the new pope. Hippolytus himself had a large following, and he gave in to their suggestion that he be appointed pope. So he agreed. He broke ties with the Church and became a false pope. When the persecution began, he was arrested and sent to Sardinia. There in that sad environment, while the enemies of Christianity laughed, a miracle of healing took place.

Pope Pontian and Hippolytus met in exile. The priest was touched by the humility of the pope. He asked to return to the Church and felt the anger lifted from his heart. Pope Pontian understood the priest and loved him. He realized their need to help and encourage each other in their love for Jesus. Both became martyrs and remain for all time witnesses of forgiveness and Christian hope.

Daily Reading & Meditation

Sunday (8/13): "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever"

Scripture: John 6:44-51

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

Meditation: God offers his people abundant life, but we can miss it. What is the bread of life which Jesus offers? It is first of all the life of God himself -- abundant life which sustains us not just physically but spiritually as well, and not only for this age but also for the age to come. The Rabbis said that the generation in the wilderness have no part in the life to come. In the Book of Numbers it is recorded that the people who refused to brave the dangers of the promised land were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they died. The Rabbis believed that the father who missed the promised land also missed the life to come. When Jesus offers us real life he brings us into a new relationship with God, a relationship of love, trust, and obedience. And Jesus offers us real life which lasts forever, a life of enduring love, unending fellowship, and lasting communion with the One who made us in love to be with him forever. To refuse Jesus is to refuse eternal life, unending life with the Heavenly Father. To accept Jesus as the bread of heaven is not only life and spiritual nourishment for this world but glory in the world to come.

Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum – "the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:51). Jesus’ passing over to his Father by his death and resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Last Supper and celebrated in the eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the church in the glory of God’s kingdom. When the Lord Jesus commands his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he invites us to take his life into the very center of our being (John 6:53-54). That life which he offers is the very life of God himself. When we come to the table of the Lord in the eucharist and when we listen to the words of scripture we encounter the risen Lord himself who is the living bread which comes down from heaven.

How would you like your "watermelon" prepared and served?

How to make the Olympic Games even more interesting in 2008?
(Part 2)

(Somewhere in Australia)

AUGUST 12
ST. PORCARIUS AND COMPANIONS

In the fifth century, a large abbey for monks was built off the coast of Provence, which is southern France today. It was called the abbey of Lerins. The abbey was filled with many holy monks. By the eighth century, the community of Lerins was made up of monks, novices, students and young men interested in becoming monks. There were over five hundred men.

Around 732, Abbot Porcarius had some kind of a revelation or premonition. The monastery was about to be attacked by barbarian invaders. Abbot Porcarius packed all the students and thirty-six of the younger monks onto a boat. He sent them off to safety. Because there were no more boats, he gathered the remainder of the community around him. Nobody complained about being left behind. Instead, they prayed together for courage. They asked the Lord for the gift to forgive their enemies.

Soon Saracens from Spain or North Africa landed their ships. They attacked the monks, just as the abbot had predicted. The monks prayed and encouraged one another to bravely suffer and die for Christ. The attackers pounced on their prey and killed all but four who were carried off as slaves.

St. Porcarius and the monks of Lerins had become brave martyrs for Jesus.

Saturday (8/12): "Nothing will be impossible to you"

Scripture: Matthew 17:14-20

14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, 15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." 17 And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." 18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."

Meditation: What kind of faith does the Lord expect of us, especially when we meet set-backs and trials? Inevitably there are times when each of us disappoint others or disappoint ourselves when we suffer some kind of set- back or failure. In this gospel incident the disciples of Jesus fail to heal an epileptic boy. Jesus' response seems stern; but it is really tempered with love and compassion. We see at once Jesus' dismay with the disciples' lack of faith and his concern to meet the need of this troubled boy and his father. With one word of command Jesus rebukes the evil spirit that has caused this boy's affliction and tells the spirit to "never enter him again". Jesus tells his disciples that they can "remove mountains" if they have faith in God. The expression to "remove mountains" was a common Jewish phrase for removing difficulties. A wise teacher who could solve difficulties was called a "mountain remover". If we pray with expectant faith God will give us the means to overcome difficulties and obstacles. When you meet trials and disappointments how do you respond? With faith and trust in Jesus?