Tribulation Times
(Eph 6:1-4) Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is just. Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise: That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long lived upon earth. And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger: but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.
POPE BENEDICT XVI: "The family is an indispensable base for society and for peoples, as well as an irreplaceable good for children, worthy of coming into life as a fruit of love, of the parents' total and generous surrender."
"Today more than ever is needed the testimony and public commitment of all the baptized to reaffirm the dignity and the unique and irreplaceable value of the family founded on the marriage of a man and a woman and open to life, as well as the [value] of human life in all its stages."
FROM THE MAILBAG
VIA Diane : Homily on Right to Life Sunday (January 18, 2009) by Fr. Joe Shea
HEADLINE: Vatican Official Reflects On 'Crisis' Of Fatherhood
The president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (one heart) on Jan. 23 expressed concern that weakened masculinity around the world prevents people from grasping Jesus' teaching on the heavenly Father.
"Today, the self-understanding of manhood, and especially fatherhood, is in crisis," said Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, pointing to the feminist movement, psycho-social theories and erroneous citations of the Bible as contributing to this.
The 74-year-old prelate cited reports and surveys documenting "weakened male identity."
One of his references, a Catholic Charities report, estimates 24 million children in the United States live in a home without a father. According to Cardinal Cordes, that figure was 10 million in the 1960s.
The report found that compared to boys who live with their father, boys from fatherless homes are twice as likely to end up in prison. They are also more likely to drop out or be expelled from school, and account for 63 percent of youth suicides and 90 percent of youths who run away from home, it said.
U.S. laws also "undermine the role of the father," the cardinal maintained, citing legislation allowing "gay so-called parents" to adopt children and the 2008 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act, which enables single women to conceive children through artificial methods.
In Europe, he said, recent trends also "work to diminish masculinity." He described a research paper published by the Council of Europe in 1998 that indicated male leaders and fathers have "become more like women and mothers" in behavior, including becoming "sweeter."
Cardinal Cordes cautioned that "flexibility of the sexes" in children's education should not suggest that male identity is merely a product of a culture or consequence of social circumstances.
Cardinal Cordes offered Jesus Christ's relationship with God the Father as a model for father-son relationships. Jesus spoke with God as a child, in a simple way, intimate and familiar, he said. In his view, "abba," which the cardinal translated as "papa" or "dear daddy" in today's language, reveals the most affectionate center of Jesus' relationship with God.
However, he also stressed the role of the father as the person who orients and directs the child and contributes to its growth in goodness even when it causes the child discomfort or unpleasantness. Men who are not necessarily biological fathers perform that spiritual fathering role in developing children in ethics and values, he explained.
NEWSLINK: Gays preferred to grandparents in Edinburgh
REVIEW: Saving marriages, one viewing at a time
Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerRequest3@aol.com
READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: http://www.oneyearbibleonline.com/january.asp?version=63&startmmdd=0101
January 29, 2009(Eph 6:1-4) Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is just. Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise: That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be long lived upon earth. And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger: but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.
POPE BENEDICT XVI: "The family is an indispensable base for society and for peoples, as well as an irreplaceable good for children, worthy of coming into life as a fruit of love, of the parents' total and generous surrender."
"Today more than ever is needed the testimony and public commitment of all the baptized to reaffirm the dignity and the unique and irreplaceable value of the family founded on the marriage of a man and a woman and open to life, as well as the [value] of human life in all its stages."
FROM THE MAILBAG
VIA Diane : Homily on Right to Life Sunday (January 18, 2009) by Fr. Joe Shea
HEADLINE: Vatican Official Reflects On 'Crisis' Of Fatherhood
The president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (one heart) on Jan. 23 expressed concern that weakened masculinity around the world prevents people from grasping Jesus' teaching on the heavenly Father.
"Today, the self-understanding of manhood, and especially fatherhood, is in crisis," said Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, pointing to the feminist movement, psycho-social theories and erroneous citations of the Bible as contributing to this.
The 74-year-old prelate cited reports and surveys documenting "weakened male identity."
One of his references, a Catholic Charities report, estimates 24 million children in the United States live in a home without a father. According to Cardinal Cordes, that figure was 10 million in the 1960s.
The report found that compared to boys who live with their father, boys from fatherless homes are twice as likely to end up in prison. They are also more likely to drop out or be expelled from school, and account for 63 percent of youth suicides and 90 percent of youths who run away from home, it said.
U.S. laws also "undermine the role of the father," the cardinal maintained, citing legislation allowing "gay so-called parents" to adopt children and the 2008 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act, which enables single women to conceive children through artificial methods.
In Europe, he said, recent trends also "work to diminish masculinity." He described a research paper published by the Council of Europe in 1998 that indicated male leaders and fathers have "become more like women and mothers" in behavior, including becoming "sweeter."
Cardinal Cordes cautioned that "flexibility of the sexes" in children's education should not suggest that male identity is merely a product of a culture or consequence of social circumstances.
Cardinal Cordes offered Jesus Christ's relationship with God the Father as a model for father-son relationships. Jesus spoke with God as a child, in a simple way, intimate and familiar, he said. In his view, "abba," which the cardinal translated as "papa" or "dear daddy" in today's language, reveals the most affectionate center of Jesus' relationship with God.
However, he also stressed the role of the father as the person who orients and directs the child and contributes to its growth in goodness even when it causes the child discomfort or unpleasantness. Men who are not necessarily biological fathers perform that spiritual fathering role in developing children in ethics and values, he explained.
NEWSLINK: Gays preferred to grandparents in Edinburgh
REVIEW: Saving marriages, one viewing at a time
Ladder of Divine Ascent excerpt: step 14- "On that clamorous mistress, the stomach"
19. The mind of a faster prays soberly, but the mind of an intemperate person is filled with impure idols.Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerRequest3@aol.com
This month's archive can be found at: http://www.catholicprophecy.info/news2.html.
