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You have allowed a breach in your walls my children! Seers awake ! Rise up to repair your borders and walls for you can not sustain what is about to come now as blind as you now are ! Awake ! Repair ! Come up higher and fast all distractions and guard your gates , replace your blind Seers with the ones that look to Me alone for guidance and KNOW I AM here. So there is no reason to tarry or allow in bitter waters that do not replenish and leave behind Asherah poles of disdain(contempt) . Am I...

A worship event if being planned for the city of Syracuse for the evening of Friday, Sept 16, 2016 beginning at 7PM at the Carrier Dome on the campus of Syracuse University. Admission and parking are free and there will be sign language interpretation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. It's a joint effort of the following campus ministries on the SU campus and is being supported by 25-30 local area churches. This has the full support of the new chancellor. Fellowship of Christian Athletes Evangelical Christian Ministries Roman Catholic Association Historically Black Church Young Life College Brothers and...

What Is Your Biggest Distraction? No Need to Look Very Far! Msgr. Charles Pope • August 31, 2016 • We usually think of distractions as coming from the world around us, but is that really the most common source? Consider the following parable, drawn from the stories of the early Desert Fathers and from monastic experience:Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the disciples; not the Master, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the silence. To his protesting disciples he said...

Until we recapture the true meaning of elected officials as representative servants, and use our tongues to reinstate that fact, we will suffer the consequences of our own folly Deeper than PC mania that has skewed culture, government role titles have been reconfigured to instill reverence over familiarity. The repetitive wrongful identification of officials has produced a mindset far different from the original intent of government. All this to say that we’ve inadvertently changed our relationship to government by allowing changes in address to occur. At the top of the list is how we refer to elected officeholders – we’ve...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFOojfjRE64

I was raised in a non-liturgically based Christian denomination and have since spent the vast majority of my adult life in a Pentecostal/Charismatic context. Suffice it to say, I was not well-versed in church liturgy. At least not in the traditional sense of the word. However, my experience in more formal liturgically-based church gatherings have always caused me to be more thoughtfully engaged in the service. Not just intellectually, but in contemplative, reflective, and prayerful ways as well. And, you know what I’ve learned? Liturgical cues give me the space to pause and ponder. Liturgical cues give me the space...

"Midtown Manhattan cathedral engulfed in flames: 'Irreplaceable' 160-year-old Orthodox Christian church is consumed by fire" A 160-year-old Orthodox Christian cathedral in New York has been completely destroyed after a huge fire tore through it on Sunday The blaze broke out at the Serbian Cathedral of Saint Sava on 25th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron district at around 7pm. It is not known how the fire started, though it is believed to have broken out on the first floor of the building before consuming the interior and roof. An FDNY spokesman said that nobody was believed to be inside the building at...

I was recently at a party where the topic of religion and abortion came up. A Christian minister overheard the discussion and abruptly interjected: “Abortion is a private and sensitive issue. Whatever your position on abortion, Sunday services are not the place to talk about the subject. We can’t let politics get in the way of preaching the Gospel.” Maybe you agree with this minister. The Shockwaves of Abortion There have been nearly 60 million abortions since 1973. Does the silence of the church communicate compassion to those who experienced an abortion? Is it sensitive and respectful to avoid addressing...

Wheaton College is stirring up an old debate this week that’s worth revisiting. Professor Larycia Hawkins, in an effort to show solidarity with Muslims, decided to wear a hijab during advent. While wearing a hijab may have been tolerated by the school, what she said about the relationship between Islam and Christianity, was not. She wrote: “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.” For the crime of saying, “we worship the same God” Hawkins was suspended from...

An Apple Watch may have saved a teenagers life, and Apple CEO Tim Cook is so pleased that he offered the thankful teen an internship next year,” Gregory Ferenstein reports for ReadWrite. “Paul Houle, a 17-year-old from Massachusetts, says that the watch’s heart rate monitor tipped him off to a dangerous condition. Had he not gone to see a doctor to check out his unusually high heart rate, he may not be alive today.” “‘After [football] practice I went and took a nap, my heart rate was still at 145,’ he told WCVB, a local CBS news station. Houle went...

NEW DELHI: In a breathtaking spectacle, Goddess Kali was projected on the Empire State Building in New York. Artist Andrew Jones designed the portrait of the goddess to make the point that Mother Nature now more than ever needs a fierce avatar to fight the dangers of pollution and extinction, Firstpost.com reported. Earlier images of endangered species, including Cecil the lion, were also projected on the iconic building...

I am alabaster in beauty ; the pearl in your crown , The voice of wisdom ; my words never fall to the ground , My majesty surrounds you for my heart you obey , My kingdom goes before you each and every day , There is no other that you serve , Your feet remain steady ; they never swerve , My heart is the path you joyfully anticipate , I AM your inheritance you pant for yet never need to wait , I AM your Shepherd ; your gateway , the pool of mercy you know , My...

British recording artist Sting says President Obama could be the answer to the world’s problems – the divine answer. “In many ways, he’s sent from God, because the world’s a mess,” he said in a new interview with the Associated Press. The comments from The Police’s lead singer, whose real name is Gordon Sumner, are just the latest in a long series of statements suggesting Obama’s connection to the supernatural. WND previously reported when an artist who planned to unveil a portrait of Obama in a Christ-like pose with a crown of thorns upon his brow canceled the event due...

The purest form of religion on earth, says Rome, is to bow before a piece of bread and worship it. “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life,’ ” and “is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1324, 1407). And “the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration,” is “the heart and summit of the celebration” (1352). It is at the utterance of the consecration, the priest’s words, “This is My body,” and “This is the cup of My blood,” that the bread and wine are said to...

June 23, 2015  Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 13:2, 5-18 Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support them if they stayed together; their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. There were quarrels between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and those of Lot’s. (At this time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were occupying the land.) So Abram said to Lot: “Let there be no strife between you and me, or...

We concluded our last series on The Sacrifice Challenge with a few citations from Cyril of Jerusalem, so we thought it opportune to use him to demonstrate one of the ways Rome “finds” her doctrines in the Early Church. As we noted last week, Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures were part of a late-fourth century trend during which Rome’s novel Mass Sacrifice was invented. Catholic Answers used a few select quotes to prove Cyril’s belief in transubstantiation, but as we demonstrated, those quotes were truncated in order to isolate them from their context, and Cyril—even in the midst of his other errors—nevertheless...

When sharing with catholics the wonderful news about the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for the sins of the world, one of the most tragic and miserable deceptions that many of them have blindly bought into is their worship and idolization of the eucharist.   Breaking bread is something that all Bible believers cherish and take very seriously, especially after reading Paul's solemn admonition not to come to the Lord's table with any unconfessed sin in our hearts (1 Cor. 11:23-34). However, communion is only for those of us that have already been saved from...

Early in President Obama’s tenure in the White House, Catholic Online and other media outlets reported what appeared to be a deliberate attack on the Constitution’s “freedom of religion” protections. The report noted a crucial change in Obama’s language between his June 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt, where he spoke of a Muslim America and its “freedom of religion,” to the November 2009 memorial for the Fort Hood soldiers gunned down by a radical Muslim, where he termed it “freedom of worship.” From that point on, “freedom of worship” has become the term of choice, the report said. Now, the...

God and God Alone: A Homily for the 29th Sunday of the Year By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe Gospel today contains lots of interesting juxtapositions: hatred for Jesus but grudging respect for him,  real questions versus rhetorical ones, politics and faith, duties to Caesar and duties to God. The word  “juxtaposition” is from the Latin juxta (meaning “near”) and positio (meaning “place or position”). Hence juxtaposition is the placing of two things near to each other in order to see how they are similar and yet different.  In English, usually a juxtaposition emphasizes differences more than similarities.Let’s look at these one...

When I was young, there was nothing worse for a church than to be “traditional”. We stripped back the liturgy, swapped the organ for a drum-kit, and replaced the hymnals with Hillsong. We unceremoniously dumped the icons, architecture and rituals that had fed the church for hundreds of years. We were desperate to present a cool, socially acceptable, “relevant” package for modern culture. Today, something unexpected is happening. There is a small but distinct movement of young people abandoning the smoke machines, multi-purpose buildings and celebrity pastors of recent church models, and heading back towards traditional worship services, where sacraments...