Go find roses in the snow!

St. Juan Diego, oremus!

O God, who by means of Saint Juan Diego showed
the love of the most holy Virgin Mary for your people,
grant, through his intercession,
that, by following the counsels our Mother gave at Guadalupe,
we may be ever constant in fulfilling your will.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

Today is the feast of St. Juan Diego, the anniversary of the first time this poor weaver, farmer, and laborer heard our Lady's voice, urging him to tell the bishop to build a church on Tepeyac Hill in her honor. When the bishop asked for proof, Juan went to the hill and found Castilian Roses blooming from the frozen ground and he gathered them into his tilma. As great as the miracle of the winter roses was, they were not what got the bishop's attention for it the image of the Mystical Rose was imprinted on Juan's tilma ...

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and through his Cross, continued in the intercession of saints (especially his Mother!) and the Church in the world, He brings Life where there was only the frozen hardness of Sin and Death. Go! Share the flowers of grace you've received with someone this winter, reveal the image of Christ in each other and the beauty of Our Mother to the world.

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Introducing The Good Reverend Pudgemuffin

My favorite gentleman in the blogosphere is currently the Good Reverend Pudgemuffin at Are You There God? It's me, Atheist. He is a wonderful and impassioned seeker of Truth with regards to the existence of God, and from his blog's title, you can guess what side of the fence he falls. He is a fellow Ashevillain, and I highly regard his thinking and enjoy his irreverent skepticism which is humorous and critical without being snarkily polemical. Inspired, I wrote a lengthy reply to one of his entries, and he in turn devoted a whole entry in response to my response . Not to be outdone, I composed a response to the response's response, which I planned to keep hidden within his comments, but it far exceeded (more than double) the character limits. So thus ....

in persona christi | on priestly celibacy

[Christ] is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of he heavenly sanctuary. — Heb 8:1-5 In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. — Mat 22:30 There seems to me a powerful link here between the reading from Hebrews in today's Office of Readings and Matthew 22 that speaks to priestly celibacy, and I offer a few off the cuff reflections.

But now ...

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God? ... That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. —St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 6:11 "But now ..." what words of comfort to us sinners. St. Paul reminds us that before we were plunged into the death of Christ by Baptism, we were defined by our sins. "That is what some of you used to be ." But now, though sinners we remain and continue to sin the face of grace, we are no longer defined by them. Rather than conforming to an image of death, we have been restored to the image of Christ in which we were made.

Our Lady of Ashes

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