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(Audio lecture)

My wife and I have traveled back and forth across the country the past year. It has given us the opportunity to visit a number of churches. We have felt the movement of the Holy Spirit in every service we have attended. That is, until recently, when he heard a message we found quite disturbing. It actually wasn’t the main topic of the pastor’s sermon. Rather, it was a sidebar at the end of his message. It concerned the church’s finances. He told the congregation that weekly collections had not met budget all year long. And he admonished church members...

Wednesday, March 02, 2011 Being Good or Going to Mass Not long ago I had a conversation with a woman which is pretty typical. She's real nice, wealthy, upper middle class and Catholic. I ask her where they go to Mass. She says they don't go to Mass, but they are "really good people." She then proceeds to tell me how good she is. So I'm at St Joseph's Catholic School and I ask the kids, "So here's a Catholic question for you..what's better to be good and not go to Mass or to go to Mass and be bad?"...

RICHMOND, Va. | A school district in southwestern Virginia is re-posting copies of the Bible's Ten Commandments in all county schools, despite concerns that doing so is unconstitutional. The five-member Giles County School Board voted unanimously to restore the framed, 4-foot-tall, biblical texts after parents and local ministers complained about their removal from the district's five schools and its technology center. The decision was made even though the board's attorney advised that such Christian displays represent unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. The Ten Commandments were up on school walls in Giles County for at least a decade next to framed...

Featured Term (selected at random):MURDER The unjust killing of an innocent person. Directly to intend killing of an innocent person is forbidden either to a private citizen or to the State, and this even in order to secure the common good. God has supreme and exclusive ownership over human lives, and so he is the only one who has the right to allow the taking of a human life. He confers on civil authority the right to take the life of a condemned criminal only when this is necessary for achieving the just purposes of the State. In a commentary...

Featured Term (selected at random):TEN COMMANDMENTS Also called the Decalogue, they are the divinely revealed precepts received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Engrave on two tablets of stone, they occur in two versions in the Bible. The earlier form (Exodus 20:1-17) differs from the alter (Deuteronomy 5:6-18) in tow ways. It gives a religious motive, instead of a humanitarian one, for observing the sabbath; and in prohibitin avarice, it classes a man's wife along with the rest of his possessions, instead of separately. With the exception of forbidding graven images and statues and the precept about the Sabbath, the Ten...

Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With Jump to: The 7 Sacraments (The Holy Mysteries)The 7 Corporal Works of MercyThe 7 Spiritual Works of MercyThe 3 Eminent Good WorksThe 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost (& the Charismata)The 12 Fruits of the Holy GhostThe 3 Theological VirtuesThe 4 Cardinal VirtuesThe 7 Capital Sins & Their Contrary VirtuesThe 6 Sins Against the Holy GhostThe 4 Sins That Cry Out to HeavenThe 3 Conditions of Mortal SinThe 9 Ways We Participate in Others' SinsThe 10 CommandmentsThe 2 Greatest CommandmentsThe 3 Evangelical CounselsThe 6 Precepts of the ChurchThe Holy Days of Obligation (English)The...

Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With Jump to: The 7 Sacraments (The Holy Mysteries)The 7 Corporal Works of MercyThe 7 Spiritual Works of MercyThe 3 Eminent Good WorksThe 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost (& the Charismata)The 12 Fruits of the Holy GhostThe 3 Theological VirtuesThe 4 Cardinal VirtuesThe 7 Capital Sins & Their Contrary VirtuesThe 6 Sins Against the Holy GhostThe 4 Sins That Cry Out to HeavenThe 3 Conditions of Mortal SinThe 9 Ways We Participate in Others' SinsThe 10 CommandmentsThe 2 Greatest CommandmentsThe 3 Evangelical CounselsThe 6 Precepts of the ChurchThe Holy Days of Obligation (English)The...

Eddie, why am I reading your vanity? Because I am going to share a discovery with you that explains everything the left says and does. First, let me introduce you to Irving Lester Janis (26 May 1918 - 15 November 1990). He was a research psychologist at Yale University and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most famous for his theory of "groupthink" which described the systematic errors made by groups when taking collective decisions.So what Eddie? Groupthink is a tired slur that gets tossed around, make this quick or I’m outta here. Wait! Groupthink...

A Catholic priest stole $1.3 million from his Waterbury, Conn., parish to finance a gay old time in New York, authorities charged yesterday. The Rev. Kevin Gray allegedly blew the money he looted from his financially struggling parish over seven years on male escorts, rooms at hotels, including the Waldorf, designer clothes, trendy restaurants and tuition for several young studs. Gray, 64, regularly shacked up in an Upper East Side apartment that he rented for a 35-year-old man, court documents charge. The priest not only paid for the apartment, but also the Harvard tuition for his male friend, authorities said....

Excerpt 19 I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness. 20 For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. 21 And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; 22 And all those who...

So Protestants and Catholics may not agree on which books should be in the Bible. And we don’t agree on which translations are best. But at least we can always agree on the Ten Commandments, right?  Well, not exactly. We agree on the scripture passages that the ten commandments come from (Deut 5 and Exodus 20). But scripture doesn’t enumerate them for us and break them into 10 nice, neat “commandments.� Because of this, there have been a number of different variations of the ten commandments as we know them today. The Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant versions are very...

A copy of the commandments is back on the wall of a Kentucky courthouse after the federal court ruled late last week that the display does not violate the U.S. Constitution. After a decade of court battles with the American Civil Liberties Union and others, advocates of religious expression seem to be on a winning streak.

Part Three:  The Will of God Eighth Commandment Table of Contents     In both versions of the Decalogue, the wording of the Eighth Commandment is the same: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20). Throughout the Old Testament, the full meaning of this commandment includes both the prohibition against telling a lie and the precept of telling the truth. Thus, “Lips that tell the truth abide firm forever; the tongue that lies lasts only for a moment. Lips that lie are abhorrent to Yahweh; dear to Him those who speak the truth” (Proverbs 12:19, 19:22).The...

Part Three:  The Will of God Seventh and Tenth Commandments Table of Contents     The biblical precept of the Seventh Commandment, like the Sixth, is a short imperative, “You shall not steal.” It is the same in both versions of the Decalogue. The Tenth Commandment, as already seen, is that part of the Ten Commandments which forbids coveting what belongs to someone else, whether his house, servant, ox, donkey, or anything else. Deuteronomy distinguishes between coveting “your neighbor’s wife,” and “setting your heart” on other possessions, including the neighbor’s field (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19). Like the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, the...

Part Three:  The Will of God Sixth and Ninth Commandments Table of Contents     In the Catholic version of the Decalogue, the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are coupled together. They both prescribe the practice of chastity. The biblical text for the Sixth Commandment is simply “You shall not commit adultery” in both Exodus 20:14 and Deuteronomy 5:18. But the Ninth Commandment is part of a longer prohibition of covetousness. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his servant, man or woman, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is his (Exodus...

Part Three:  The Will of God Fifth Commandment Table of Contents     The wording of the Fifth Commandment is identical in the two biblical texts of the Decalogue, “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 20:5-17). Already in the Old Testament the prohibition was understood to mean “You shall not murder.” Always understood was that it was forbidden to kill an innocent person.The first recorded crime in the moral degradation after the Fall was the murder of Abel by his envious brother Cain (Genesis 4:1-16). Cain’s punishment by God reveals the gravity of the sin of murder. Several times, the prophets...

Part Three:  The Will of God Fourth Commandment Table of Contents     The first three commandments pertain to our relationship with God. They oblige us to recognize God as our Lord and Master, to honor His Name in language and song, and to pay Him public homage as a people whom He has called to be His own. With the Fourth Commandment, we enter on a new relationship with God. If the first three commandments summarize what may be called “religion,” the last seven synthesize “morality.” From the fourth through the tenth precepts, our duties toward others are identified as the...

Part Three:  The Will of God Third Commandment Table of Contents     The longest biblical text in the Decalogue is for the Third Commandment. While both Exodus and Deuteronomy prescribe the Sabbath, the motive and the manner of its observance are different. Both passages, though lengthy, should be quoted in full.In Exodus, the Sabbath is a weekly commemoration of God’s creation. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do your work, but the seventh is a sabbath for Yahweh, your God. You shall do no work that day, neither you nor your son...

Part Three:  The Will of God Second Commandment Table of Contents     In both Exodus and Deuteronomy, the wording of the Second Commandment is the same. You shall not utter the name of Yahweh, your God, to misuse it, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man who utters His name to misuse it (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11). The Second Commandment is really an expression of the preceding. It prescribes the respectful use of God’s name and forbids using the Divine Name irreverently. Implied in this precept is the duty to profess by verbal communication our belief in the one true...

Part Three:  The Will of God First Commandment Table of Contents     The wording of the First Commandment is exactly the same in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no gods except me (Exodus 20:1-3; Deuteronomy 5:6-7). There follow after this statement of the First Commandment, several verses of prohibition against carved images. The Latin Rite of the Catholic Church considers these verses an explanation of the first precept. You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness...

Part Three:  The Will of God The Ten Commandments Table of Contents     The Ten Commandments are also called the Decalogue, from the Greek deka, ten, and logos, word. They are therefore the Ten Words of God which synthesize God’s covenant with His chosen people. They were divinely revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai and engraved on two tablets of stone. Moses broke the stone tablets in anger when he came down from the mountain and saw the people practicing idolatry. However, the tablets were later replaced and placed in the Ark of the Covenant.There are two versions of the Ten...

Part Three:  The Will of God Christian Morality Table of Contents     In order to reach heaven, we must have the grace of God. Beyond what we have when we enter this world, we need divine grace in order to reach everlasting life in the world to come. The main source of this grace is the sacraments, beginning with Baptism. And the most important of the sacraments to keep us spiritually alive and well is the Holy Eucharist.But the sacraments alone are not enough. We must cooperate with the graces we receive. God keeps giving us constant illuminations of the mind...

Perhaps critical events of the third century may offer a few answers. Secular historical data, backed by biblical writings suggests that up to this point every religious institution honored the Seventh Day Sabbath – except Roman and Hellenistic Pagans. During the mid to latter part of the third century the Christian movement was spreading rapidly across the Roman Empire and Christians began to out number Pagans forcing certain pagan rituals, temples, and synagogues to become obsolete putting them in jeopardy of being destroyed. It was at this critical juncture that The Roman Emperor Constantine The Great, converted from Paganism to...

What does "fear the Lord" mean? Richard Rives explains that it is the acknowledgment that God's laws are still in effect and are to be followed.

The Essentials of the Catholic Faith   Introduction As we begin our inquiry into the Catholic religion, it is important to explain briefly what we are about. Our purpose is very simple. We want to learn what the Catholic Church teaches her members should believe, where to obtain the help they need from God to live as faithful Christians, how He wants them to serve Him, and how they are to pray. These four dimensions of the Catholic religion are as old as Christianity. They may be expressed in four words: faith, sacraments, commandments, and prayer. They are, in...

Seeking Lord, Our God, with Our Heart and Being by Ari Bussel “And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD swore unto thy fathers.” Deuteronomy 6:18 To Journey We Go How often do you read the Bible? Many of my Christian friends carry a well-annotated Bible with them at all times. Reference a verse, and they immediately flip through the pages to the correct citation. For the Jews, the Bible is...

The principle is really quite simple. G-d lays it out clearly in this week's Torah portion, Bechukotai (Leviticus 26: 3-12). First, we have the condition: If you walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them;Second, the economic reward: Then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time; and you shall eat your bread until you have enough,Third, the security reward: And you will...

Did the Ten Commandments Exist Before Moses? Many people assume that the Ten Commandments and the covenant God established with ancient Israel are identical—and that both were abolished by Jesus Christ's death. They believe that the Sinai Covenant and God's commandments came into existence together and went out of existence together. But is such reasoning biblical? The facts show it is not. A close look at the Scriptures reveals that breaking the Ten Commandments was a sin before the covenant at Mt. Sinai, so arguments that they came into existence with that covenant and were terminated with it cannot be...

As we come to the Ninth Commandment, we again arrive in disputed territory. As you will recall, the Ten Commandments can be and have been split up differently so as to yield ten and not eleven commandments. Some Protestants break apart the First Commandment (yielding what I call the 1.5 Commandment against graven images). The Catholic tradition, in contrast, leaves the First Commandment whole and breaks apart the following text:   You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that...

  "You shall not steal," says Exodus 20:15. Once again, the Decalogue faces us with an injunction that seems like common sense (and is), but which is also fraught with all sorts of difficulties and distinctions.   Consider, for instance, the fact that a Catholic writer like me has the obligation to never write an original thought in my life. Indeed, one of the few earthly perks of being a Catholic writer is that you get to plagiarize all the time and call it "being faithful to the Tradition." The Catholic Faith consists of a huge body of ideas that...

  "Exodus" is the Greek name for the second book of the Bible. In Hebrew, it is called the Book of Names. That's because, like Catholic encyclicals, the Hebrew books of the Bible are titled by the opening words of the book: "These are the names . . . ."   It is fitting that this title be given to Exodus, since Exodus is a book in which names play a huge role, both in the way they are emphasized and the way they are strategically de-emphasized. Exodus pauses to tell us the names of the two earliest pro-life...

 Catholic Morality: Life in Christ Catholic morality is about life: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10) Faith & baptism give us new life in Christ. That life involves far more than simply following a set of rules. This article provides an overview of basic principles of Catholic morality. It is essential to know these principles: they are the how-to manual for living fully your new life, for obtaining that abundant life Christ has promised you. The Catholic Catechism starts its section on Catholic morality with St. Leo the Great's beautiful words: Christian, recognize...

How Do We Know That We Love God? The Bible states over and over again exactly how we are to demonstrate our love to God. The simple answer may surprise you! by Lyle Welty How do we know we genuinely love God? That probably seems like an odd question to most of us. Of course, we love God, and we just know that we love Him. But is that good enough? Is it enough to just know and feel that we love God? Is anything else involved? Actually, the Bible-God's inspired Word-is clear about how we show love to God....

The 'Curse of the Law' Galatians 3:10-13 is one of the most frequently misused passages in the Bible. In both writing and preaching, scholars and pastors alike turn to this passage to support a badly misguided assumption that Paul viewed God's law as a curse. But how could he view it as a curse since he stated in Romans 7:12 that God's law was holy? Paul indeed speaks of "the curse of the law" (Galatians 3:13), meaning a curse decreed by the law. But he does not refer to the law itself as a curse. What Paul actually says is...

Thou shall not drive under the influence of alcohol. Thou shall respect speed limits. Thou shall not consider a car an object of personal glorification or use it as a place of sin. The Vatican took a break from strictly theological matters on Tuesday to issue its own rules of the road, a compendium of do's and don'ts on the moral aspects of driving and motoring. A 36-page document called "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" contains 10 Commandments covering everything from road rage, respecting pedestrians, keeping a car in good shape and avoiding rude gestures while behind...

Did the Ten Commandments Exist Before Moses? Many people assume that the Ten Commandments and the covenant God established with ancient Israel are identical—and that both were abolished by Jesus Christ's death. They believe that the Sinai Covenant and God's commandments came into existence together and went out of existence together. But is such reasoning biblical? The facts show it is not. A close look at the Scriptures reveals that breaking the Ten Commandments was a sin before the covenant at Mt. Sinai, so arguments that they came into existence with that covenant and were terminated with it cannot...

The story you are about to read is true. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Some names have been omitted to protect us from the grumpy. The story first started thousands of years ago, when the world was young... An angel descended heaven to sell the Torah to the world and his first drop was high in the Tibetan mountains. "It's a Torah," he told the Master as the llamas looked on. "We appreciate new teachings," intoned Master. "Tell us your wisdom." "I am L-rd Your G-d. Have none before me." The master smiled sympathetically; the llamas...

Dixie courthouse unveils the Ten Commandments (headline) Http://www.gainesville.com

MURFREESBORO — A word of advice to whoever stole the Ten Commandments monument from Sharon Bennett's yard: read Number Eight. Bennett noticed the 3-foot-tall concrete pillar with its admonition not to steal missing Wednesday. "I feel sorry for whoever did it," Bennett said. "They obviously don't have many values and must be lost." She installed the pillar three years ago at the bottom of a flag pole for about $200. During holidays, Bennett, who has a son in the Army Reserves, would decorate the monument and the flagpole with red, white and blue stars. The Northside Baptist Church member and...

Reason disputed for monument By Sheila K. Stogsdill The Oklahoman MUSKOGEE - A Stigler resident testified Tuesday that religion in the form of a Ten Commandments monument has no business on government property. "The Ten Commandments have nothing to do with our law," said Sharon Nichols, an American Civil Liberties Union member and self-described naturalist. "The Ten Commandments is a historical document with limited significance to Haskell County." Nichols said she was offended by the monument, erected on the Haskell County Courthouse lawn, because she is not a Christian. She also testified she was offended by the words "In God...

STIGLER, Okla. - The 8-foot granite slab planted in the Haskell County courthouse lawn makes the Ten Commandments easy to read and hard to miss from the state highway that doubles as this town's main thoroughfare. The monument, erected with private money in 2004 with the county's approval, doesn't stop traffic and courthouse visitors on a recent morning barely gave it a glance.

Quote of the day: “All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.� — Lord Alfred Tennyson, English poet (1809-1892) As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice: When you put the two words “The� and “IRS� together it spells “THEIRS�? The 10 Marriage Commandments — Commandment 1: Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning. — Commandment 2:...

Values group hails unanimous decision Tuesday CINCINNATI -- In an astounding return to judicial interpretation of the actual text of the United States Constitution, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday issued an historic decision declaring that "the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." In upholding a Kentucky county's right to display the Ten Commandments, the panel called the American Civil Liberties Union's repeated claims to the contrary "extra-constitutional" and "tiresome." See Cincinnat Enquirer at: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/NEWS01/512210356/1056 See U.S. Court of Appeals decision, page 13: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf "Patriotic Americans should...

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A group of pastors fired up a crowd of more than 300 people during a rally around a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments on the Haskell County Courthouse lawn. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn spoke Saturday at the gathering in favor of the monument, which a recent American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit says is a sign of the government favoring one religion over another. But Coburn and others who were vocal at the rally contend that the statements listed in the Ten Commandments are guidelines to a moral, law-abiding society regardless of religious beliefs. "I wish...

COWS Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington. And they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them each a cow. CONSTITUTION They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart Guys, it's worked for over 200...

BECK/SMITH HOLLYWOOD EXCLUSIVE New 'Ten Commandments' to Stir Hornet's Nest Says Naveen ABC's upcoming miniseries of 'The Ten Commandments' promises to push quite a few buttons, reports 'Lost' regular Naveen Andrews, who stars in the epic project with Dougray Scott, Omar Sharif, Linus Roache, Mia Maestro and Paul Rhys. Andrews predicts it will stir up a hornet's nest. 'What was unusual about the way we did this version of 'The Ten Commandments' was we treated Moses like he was a lunatic. If somebody came and told you today, 'I've just been talking to a burning bush,' you would try and...

I recently wrote about the fact that Liberals don’t really hate war, but they demonstrably do hate freedom — and America, too. The numerous responses I got to that intentionally provocative topic were quite interesting, to say the least. Predictably, most Conservatives seemed to love the concept. Meanwhile, most Liberals really “hated” it. Funny how intolerant these Left-wing, progressive, sometimes-defenders of the virtue of universal “tolerance” can be when it’s their own ox getting gored. I truly think some of these Woodstock Nation peaceniks might get a little violent if provoked. So then I got to thinking, “What else do...

Commandments For Politically Incorrect Living Thou shalt have no nation before The United States of America.Thou shalt always say "Under God" when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.Honor thy Bush and thy Cheney.Thou shalt not blaspheme against Microsoft or Haliburton.Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's CorvetteThou shalt use every tax loophole in existence, and hoard thy money.Thou shalt not buy an electric car, for it is uncool.Thou shalt not oppose drilling for domestic oil.Thou shalt not try to "understand" weird people.Thou shalt not have a sex-change.Thou shalt not trust any man who weareth a diaper upon his headThou shalt not suffer...

Reports about the state of world Jewry tend to focus on anti-Semitism. Although the annual report of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, submitted to the cabinet this week, rightly cautions about such dangers, it devotes more attention to other problems facing Western Jewry: intermarriage, assimilation and waning Jewish connectedness. No single Diaspora community is immune from the crisis in Jewish demography. But the crisis is most acute in the United States, where the "core" Jewish population as defined by the JPPPI has actually declined over the past 35 years, and is projected to decline further in the next 15...