Priest Marries in Australia

A news story has broken about a priest in Australia who has admitted that he has been secretly married for a year. The article also says that there are many more like him in the world. The link is at the bottom of this article.

 

Now MSNBC ran the story and since I believe MSNBC lies through their teeth about most things, I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

Still, if it is true, then this priest is saying that there are more priests like him and if that's true, then I'm pretty sad about the whole situation.

We understand they have those same needs as most men seem to think they need, but as a man of God, God gives our priests the grace to not desire things of this world but only of the next.

I'm not entirely against a priest being married, but there are some reasons for celibacy. One, St. Paul talks about how it is better to be celibate, but if you can't be, then be married. Course in today's culture, being married is no longer a prerequisite to people having sex.

As I stated in my previous post, tv plays a lot into how people lead their lives and priests are human, too. If priests watch the same garbage the rest of the world watches, I would think that it would be pretty hard for them to live their life of celibacy.

What many people fail to understand is that celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine and began when men, themselves, decided to forsake others in favor of living for God alone. God does not exactly say a priest has to be celibate, but again, we fall back on St. Paul's words regarding his own vocation of being celibate. And he was a priest of God's.

Mary, herself, was given so many graces to help her in this life retain her virginity, to not lust for man. Priests are given these very same graces and are not required to become a priest, but rather have chosen to be one. It is an admirable profession, even if most of mankind doesn't recognize it as such.

I was glad to see that his bishop is removing him from his duties. The same thing happened to Father Corapi. These men are given a long discernment period in the beginning to decided, can they be a priest, do they really want to be a priest and can they live up to their own vows, just as we are to live up to our marriage vows.

So we need to pray hard for our priests. The devil is working hard today to try and take them from God before the end of time. If we are in the end times, then our prayers need to be especially fervent for those men who are to lead their flocks to heaven.

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/02/11497228-catholic-priest-in-australia-ive-been-secretly-married-for-a-year?lite

Our Sorrowful Mother

Our Sorrowful Mother

With this country in the worse shape it's ever been in, and with, IMO, the worse president we've ever had, I want you to think about your own sufferings because of all of this and consider this for a minute. According to our Holy Church when recalling only seven of Our Lady's sorrows, the sufferings of the Mother of God cannot be comprehended. Her life, like that of her Divine Son, was a continuous series of sufferings and tribulations. Mary had her own way of the cross and not one person who has ever lived on this earth suffered like she did, other than her own Son, Our Lord .

After reading this, I began to think about how selfish I am, especially when it comes to the daily sufferings we all have, which are small in comparison. We get an sore toe or a headache or break a bone or something and it's like the worst thing ever. OR worse yet, we lose a spouse, parent or child and have to face life alone without that person until eternity, IF we make it to heaven.

The purpose of the Devotion is to promote union with the sufferings of Christ through union with the special suffering that Our Lady endured because she was the Mother of God. By uniting ourselves with both the Passion of Christ and His holy Mother, we enter into Jesus' Heart and honor Him greatly; He is more honored because we have so honored His Mother.

So I'm thinking about trying to begin a devotion to Our Sorrowful Mother. I know others have done this devotion and have liked it a lot. There are so many devotions we Catholics can do, but to specifically pick something out that touches our heart takes some thought sometimes. We know that the devotion to the rosary is the best one of anything. The Sorrowful Mother devotion teaches us the sorrowful mysteries of Mary from the Gospels, which we really don't hear that much about other than the two feast days the Church has in honor of the Sorrowful Mother - the Friday before Good Friday and September 15.

There are two different devotional prayers for this devotion. To read about the devotion and to pray the Rosary of Tears, follow this link.
http://www.catholictradition.org/Passion/tears.htm

To read the devotion to and pray the seven dolors (sorrows), follow this link: http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/7sorrows.htm