Greeting the New Year---the Catholic Way*

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018   courtesy updatepedia.com

By Larry Peterson

According to Georgetown University , as of October 2017, there are 1.28 billion Catholics in the world. 70.4 million of them are in the United States. The USA has a population of approximately 330,000,000 people. That works out to about 22% of the American population being Catholic.

From the Pope down to the vagrant, each of us is an individual creation made by God. We are all unique. Incredibly, we will all be judged individually. And, as Catholics, we will be held to a higher standard. After all, we proclaim to be part of the Mystical Body of Christ which is filled with the deposit of faith. No matter how we lived our lives, the common denominator for all of us will be; How much we loved each other and our neighbor.

Based on that, here are some points to consider if we focus on, before all else, pleasing God in the New Year, the Catholic Way:

ü  Never forget that you are God’s individual creation and therefore a gift He has bestowed on the world. Be humbled by the fact that He does have you in the palm of His hand. Without Him you are nothing.

ü  Be happy with who and what you are. God made you and loves you. If you feel you need to change to please Him, you can do it. Just ask for His help.

ü  The choices you make are your responsibility. Sometimes our choices hurt us. Embrace them and learn from them and move on. Thank God for the experience.

ü  Sometimes NOT getting what you want or what you think you need is a blessing. If you trust God, you will thank Him. When “one door closes another opens.”

ü  Always count your blessings---not your troubles.

ü  Always do your best. The “best” is all God expects from each of us.

ü  You can make it through whatever comes along.

ü  Prayer is the most powerful of weapons and can be your greatest ally in all diversity.

ü  Don’t take things too seriously---especially yourself.

ü  The key to happiness is to give of yourself, not to “get’ for yourself.

ü  Miracles happen; you are one---I am one—we all are one.

ü  Temptation is everywhere. It is okay to say “NO.”

ü  Finally, never fail to help a neighbor, whoever it may be---even a stranger.

We all will experience “highs and lows” during the coming year. As Catholics, we have the armor of the church to shield us and the angels and saints to help us fight our battles with the evil one.

St. Michael the Archangel will always ‘defend us in battle”. St. Anthony will help us find lost items. St. Jude will help us through seemingly impossible barricades. Good St. Joseph is ready to help all men be good fathers and husbands. St. Monica will help moms and St. Dymphna will help those with experiencing emotional difficulties or suffering from Alzheimer's disease. And, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary is always there for all of us.

Virtually every day of the calendar year honors a particular saint, and that saint has been assigned a special task; such as St. Padre Pio who is the patron of adolescents and volunteers or St. Maximilian Kolbe, martyred in the Holocaust, who is the patron of drug addicts. Help is always available when you are Catholic.

Lastly, we have in place for our salvation the most beautiful thing this side of heaven; the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We can actually be at the foot of the Cross and then witness the resurrection. It is there for all of us every day if we so CHOOSE. Then there are the sacraments, always available to build us up and restore us to where we should be.

Yes—being Catholic is very cool. We even have the Rosary.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2018 --“No Fear”

                                       copyright©Larry Peterson 2017

This article also appeared in Aleteia on December 29,2017

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Francis Delalieu; A Good Samaritan--He saved a future Servant of God and her family from death and then he seemingly vanished.

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

The Good Samaritan  en.wikipedia.org

By Larry Peterson

One of the most famous Gospel readings is from Luke, Ch 10: 29-37; we all know it as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus is asked which of the three was a neighbor to the robber's victim, Jesus said, "The one who treated him with mercy. Go and do likewise."  What follows is about someone who may be one of the greatest of  Good Samaritans of all time, a man we know almost nothing about.

Servant of God and Stigmatist; Anna Louise Lateau, passed away at the age of thirty-three. What is extremely interesting is the fact that Anna Louise would never have lived into her fourth month of life if it wasn't for a stranger whose name was Francis Delalieu.

The Lateau family was literally near death. The father, Gregory,  had died from smallpox just three months after Louise had been born. Adele, with three little children, was still bedridden after having a very rough time giving birth to Louise. Louise, still an infant, had also contracted smallpox. The oldest child, Rosina, was trying to be the in-house caregiver which included taking care of two-year-old Adelina.

The local doctor, overwhelmed with this smallpox epidemic, had stopped by about a week after Gregory's death to check on the family. He did his best to show three-year-old Rosina what to do. He knew it was hopeless and was sure he would soon come by and find them all dead. He told his friend, Francis Delalieu, about the family.

Try to imagine how this newly widowed, mother of three babies with no money was feeling. The despair and hopelessness must have been unbearable as she watched her three children quietly dying before her eyes. Weakened to a point where she was unable to get out of her bed, she was probably just praying that she would not be the first to die, leaving them alone. And suddenly the front door opened and there was Francis Delalieu. God was listening after all.

Francis immediately took charge. First, he cleaned up the children. Then he reassured them and left to acquire food and necessities. This man, this stranger, surely had the love of Jesus in his heart. He was risking his own life by being in a smallpox-infected household. He was spitting into the eye of the storm as he cleaned, fed and cared for the little children. This was, after all, 1850 and not 2017. They did not even have running water.

I have been (as have many others) a primary caregiver to someone seriously ill. Some caregivers are helping to nurse their loved one back to health after a serious surgery or accident. The upside to this type of caregiving is that an end is in sight because a reachable goal is possible ie; recovering from open heart surgery.

Then there is the alternative of caring for someone who is terminally ill. The goal in these cases is to help your loved one live as peacefully and as comfortable as possible until God calls them home. And then you have a person like Francis Delalieu. The only possible motivation he might have had to step into this situation was that of a Good Samaritan. He simply LOVED his neighbor.

Who was this man? Who was this stranger who came into a household that was a breeding ground for smallpox and had three babies with a bedridden mom living there who were near death? Who does this kind of thing simply out of kindness and compassion? Who would stay for almost two and a half years until the mother and children were once again healthy? Francis Delalieu is that person. There are many like him but most are unheralded and unheard of.

All we can seem to find out about Francis Delalieu is that he was a farmhand or a laborer and that he lived in or around the small town of Bois d' Haine, in Belgium. That is about it. It is known he took  Adele Lateau and her children under his care and nurtured them all until they were well. After that period of time Francis seems to have vanished. At least there is no record of him after that point in time which would be around 1853.

Anna Louise Lateau was gifted with the Stigmata in the year 1868. For the rest of her life, her nourishment was only the Holy Eucharist and a few glasses of water per day. She became one of the most famous stigmatists of the 19th century. Francis Delalieu was just an unknown man who stepped up and took care of his neighbor, just like the Good Samaritan in Jesus parable. I am sure his reward has been great in heaven. When God is involved, all things are possible.


                                    Copyright©Larry Peterson 2017

I am a Grandpa and YES! Just like Francis P. Church, I Believe in Santa, too

photo courtesy  hollywoodreporter.com

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

Most folks do not know much about a man by the name of Francis Pharcellus Church. Heck, most people have never even heard of him. However, to me, he is one of the greatest newspaper editors of all time. That is because he took on a skeptical world and dared try to prove the existence of Santa Claus.

Francis Church was born in Rochester, New York, on February 22, 1839. At the age of 21, he graduated from Columbia College (now Columbia University). Francis had considered a career in law but opted instead for a life in journalism.

During the Civil War, he worked as a war correspondent. Together, with his brother, William, he worked on The Army and Navy Journal.  In 1869 Francis and William launched a literary publication called Galaxy Magazine. Contributors to Galaxy included Mark Twain and Henry James. But it was his position at the  NewYork Sun that would propel him to fame. And all he had to do was reach into his heart and write what he was feeling and believing.

A letter had arrived at the editorial office of the New York Sun. The letter read: Dear Editor---I am eight years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it is so. Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon  115 W. 95^th St.

Francis P. Church just happened to be the lead editorial writer for the paper. He had a reputation as a man who was cynical, was an agnostic, and overall, more or less a grouch. Ironically, he was given the task to answer. 

What follows is the exact letter written by Francis Pharcellus Church and printed in The New York Sun on September 21, 1897. 

    Father Christmas  postcard circa 1919

Is There A Santa Claus?

From the editorial page of The New York Sun

September 21, 1897

_______________________________________________

Dear Editor---I am eight years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in THE SUN, it’s so. Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

115 W. 95^th St.

_______________________________________________

Dear Virginia, your friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes Virginia, there isa Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginia. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen andunseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and  picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah Virginia, in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives! And he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten time ten thousand years from now , he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Francis Pharcellus Church, a cynic, and grouch, latched onto a hidden faith and gave Virginia and all those children from 1897 and after,  the joy of believing in Santa Claus. I think that Santa is God’s Christmas angel and HE allows him to do his thing every Christmas Eve. Go ahead; I dare you---prove me wrong. 

 MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS

                                            copyright©Larry Peterson 2017

Hanukkah—We Catholics should give this sacred Jewish Holiday more respect

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

Menorah   en.wikipedia.org

 By Larry Peterson

The great feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on December 12^th.  In 2017 there is also another great religious holiday that commences on that same day. We Catholic/Christians hardly ever notice this day even though it is the most widely celebrated Jewish holiday in the United States. I refer to Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah). Hanukkah ends at sundown on Wednesday, December 20.

Virtually all of our faith is rooted in Judaism. Jesus was called “rabbi” and taught in the temple. St. Joseph was a “righteous Jew” who practiced his faith diligently abiding by the rules as best he could.  Our dear Blessed Mother was a Jewish girl given over to the temple hierarchy at the age of three. 

When the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer #1) is used by the priest offering Mass, “Abraham, our father in faith” is mentioned right after the consecration. Yes, our Catholic faith is most definitely descended from Judaism (no need to mention the Apostles).

What follows is about Hanukkah and some of the history and customs behind it. It is also meant to question why so many of us Catholic/Christians do not appreciate the profound connection between Judaism and Catholicism. Let us begin with the Bible and John 10: 22-35. This begins with the Feast of the Dedication. This is known today as the Festival of Lights aka Hanukkah. Verse 35 has Jesus saying, “---and scripture cannot be set aside---.”

In our Catholic Bible the Old Testament, 1 Maccabees 4:59,  reads; Then Judas and his brothers and the entire congregation of Israel decreed that the days of dedication of the altar should be observed

with joy and gladness on the anniversary every year for eight days from the 25^th day of  the month of Chislev.” This is today’s Hanukkah. And John has Jesus referring to it in his gospel. Jesus was celebrating Hanukkah. It follows that if Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, we Catholic/Christians owe it some respect.

Here is some basic information about Hanukkah:

.Hanukkah is the Jewish eight-day, wintertime “festival of lights”. This holiday celebrates the rededication of the Temple after Judah Maccabee and his brothers liberated Judea from pagan domination.

.The Menorah is a candelabra with a new candle lit each day of the celebration. The Catholic connection to Hanukkah lies in the fact that this Holiday comes from 1 and 2 Maccabees. These books are not in the Hebrew Bible or the Protestant (King James) Bible. But they are in the Catholic and Orthodox Bible.

.“Gelt” is Yiddish for coins. Gelt has been part of Hanukkah observances for centuries. Today, chocolate is often substituted for gold coins. There are those who say that chocolate gelt is similar to the European tradition of exchanging gold-covered chocolate coins in honor of the miracles of St. Nicholas.

.In 2013, the holidays of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah joined together on the same day, November 28. It was so unusual for this to happen they even had turkey-shaped menorahs in the Thanksgiving Day Parade. For many of today’s millennials, they may still be around when this clash of Holidays happens again. That will happen on November 27, 2070. As for me, I probably will miss that parade.

The following two (or three) blessings are said each night before the menorah is lit. Note the similarity to our Offertory prayers said over the bread and wine.

1) Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light.

2) Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days, at this time.

 3) Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

HAPPY HANUKKAH and MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone.

                                        copyright©Larry Peterson 2017

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Saints Flora and Mary--Betrayed by their Families and Martyred for their Faith

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

Many people have suffered the heartache and pain of being betrayed by someone close them, oftentimes a family member. There is a saint we can all turn to for spiritual and moral support when or if this ever happens to us. Her name is Flora and she and her best friend, Mary, died together for the faith they loved.

During the 9th century, the Muslims invaded and conquered large parts of what is today, Spain. One area was known as Al-Andalus. It was from this conquered area where forty-eight Christians were put to death for their faith. These are known as the Martyrs of Cordoba. These people were executed from 851 to 859. They were all convicted of violating Sharia law, their crimes ranging from apostasy to blasphemy (apostasy is proclaiming another faith other than Islam and blasphemy is denouncing Muhammad or anything Muslim. All carry the death penalty).

Among these brave Christians who stood tall for their faith while knowingly facing such horrendous consequences were two young women; one was named Flora, the other, Maria.

Flora's was born to a Muslim father and a Christian mom. When she was still a child her father died and her mom raised her as a Christian. She had an older brother who was Muslim and as she grew older he tried to convert her to Islam.  Flora was adamant that she would not turn against Jesus. Her brother, exasperated, turned her into the authorities. Flora was sent to a prison and a Muslim scholar was assigned to convert her to Islam. Somehow Flora escaped and made her way to Christian settlements.

During this same time, Mary had been born to a Christian father, who was also a deacon in the church, and a Muslim mom. Her mom had been baptized a short time after getting married. Mary's parents, fearing being charged as "apostates", left their home and headed to a town considered a safer place, Fronianus.  It was shortly thereafter that Mary's mother died.

Mary's dad, fearful for his daughter's safety, sent her to a convent in a place called Cuteclara. While praying at St. Acislus Church she met Flora, who arrived around the same time. They had much in common. Flora's Muslim brother wanted to have her killed as an apostate. Mary's dad had just been executed.

A genuine and deep friendship quickly developed between the two young women and they became inseparable.  The convent's Mother Superior told Maria how her two sons were executed by the Muslims thirty years earlier and how they had made her watch them as they suffered and died. Maria was horrified and the story was foremost in her thoughts. Flora and Mary, fortified by their profound Christian faith and the strength they shared through their deep friendship, decided to turn themselves into the Muslim authorities. They would suffer and die together for Jesus.

In the culture of that time to be branded a prostitute was considered worse than death. The Muslim court, in an attempt to break the two women, sentenced them to a brothel so they would have to endure the shame and humiliation of being a prostitute. Flora and Maria never wavered from their values and faith. They were beaten and scourged but never gave in. The authorities gave up and they were taken out and beheaded. Both girls are listed in the Roman Martyrology.

St. Flora is known as the patron saint of those who have been betrayed. After her dad passed on Flora's own brother tried to convert her to Islam and, having failed, turned her over to the authorities knowing full well she would be put to death. I cannot imagine having my own brother turn me in knowing I would suffer death at the hands of an executioner. Flora did pray for her brother before she was killed. A role model of forgiveness for us all

                                 copyright ©Larry Peterson 2017