PathToHoliness

Well my retreat is over and I’m back home. It was a wonderful experience as usual. The priest giving talks was Fr. Peter Armenio, Vicar of Opus Dei in the midwest U.S. He was a pleasure to speak with and like all priests of Opus Dei I have met, exhibited a joy for life.

This is a phone picture during one of our daily Masses. We put together a homemade chapel in which the talks are held.

At the end of our retreat we have a little get together to learn about the other guys on our silent retreat. I made a suggestion which I will write more about later, that you should use social media as a tool to aid you in your evangelization efforts. That included Facebook and Twitter.

During the coming days I’ll be tweeting some notes from my retreat. Remember you can follow me on @PathToHoliness on Twitter.

It’s time for my annual retreat and I’m ready to go. I don’t know how many years I’ve been attending an annual retreat put on by the Wespine Study Center in St. Louis but it’s a lot. The Opus Dei center supplies a priest who gives a series of talks or meditations over three days. We have Mass and the priest is available for spiritual direction and confession. It’s also a silent retreat. No talking to the other guys. Just listening to the meditations and spending time in prayer and contemplation. I love it.

I call this my time to recharge the spiritual batteries that get a little worn down sometimes in the face of all the world throws at you. It’s good to just get away from it all and do some serious interior examination and make some new resolutions. This year is also special for me because Pope John Paul II will be beatified Sunday while I’m still on retreat. He passed away when I was on retreat and I personally met him years before that. You can bet I’ll be communicating with him in prayer!

Happy Easter to you.

I know this isn’t an Easter Mass photo but I thought I’d share it with you anyway. This is from Holy Thursday Mass at our Cathedral with Bishop Gaydos doing the washing of the feet. I’ll be attending Mass there later this morning with the family.

The priest who is Master of Cermonies attending him is Fr. Ben Nwosu. Fr. Ben will be visiting our home later this week for supper. I look forward to getting to know him better.

Getting behind on my posting again. Of course that’s usually the result of lots of traveling for work. Which means work is good.

This is Immaculate Conception Church in Perry, FL. I attended Mass there on Palm Sunday while taking a day off to visit with a friend who has a house near Keaton Beach. The Pastor asked visitors to tell everyone where we were from at the end of Mass. I did so and he said I was the first person he’d seen using my phone to follow the readings. I was using the iMissal App on my iPhone!

This almost seems like a no brainer but how hard do you think this will be to accomplish? It is a national campaign to make Good Friday a national holiday. If you want to support it then sign the petition and/or plan to attend the rally in Washington, DC.

The Campaign to Commemorate Good Friday as a National Holiday will hold an official launch rally that is open to public on April 22nd, 2011 at 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. located between 7thStreet and 14thStreet. Shown during the rally on the National Mall will be a screening of ‘Passion of the Christ’ beginning at 12:00 PM. The campaign seeks to generate nation-wide support and collect 1 million signatures which it will use to petition the U.S. Congress to officially commemorate Good Friday as a National Holiday in the United States.

For more information please visit, www.GoodFridayCampaign.com or contact Sharon Jones, Director, (212) 731 – 4080 phone.

I finally upgraded to the new iBreviary app on my new iPad. This great app just keeps getting better. It looks beautiful on the iPad screen and has even more to offer. See description below. This is one of the apps I use the most on either my iPhone or iPad. Get it in the iTunes store.

iBreviary “Pro Terra Sancta” is the application that brings the traditional Catholic prayer of the Breviary and all the texts of the Liturgy on your iPhone and iPad. iBreviary “Pro Terra Sancta” wants to contribute, through a partnership with Custody of the Holy Land, friendship and prayer for all Christians living Holy Places.

iBreviary is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and contains:
– Breviary, Missal and Lectionary complete in 7 languages and continuously updated
(Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, English and Latin)
– The text of the Breviary and the Missal in the Vetus Ordo Ambrosian Rite and Latin
– All the main prayers of the Christian
– Rituals for the sacraments and celebrations
– The liturgical texts used in the Holy Land
Also iBreviary “Pro Terra Sancta” offers, than the first version of iBreviary:
– The new section, “Rites”, with all the rituals and texts for the various celebrations
Catholic (Adoration of the Eucharist, the Sacraments, Blessings, etc.).
– The brand new “Terra Sancta” the liturgical texts used in the Holy Land
– Keep in touch through the blog and the pages of the Franciscans
Holy Places.
– A rich section dedicated to Saints
– Store a day on any device
– Full management of saved days (selection and cancellation)
– Unlimited storage days (something very much in demand by those who want to download
a bit ‘of days for travel or long period without internet access from your iPhone /
iPad)
– Instantly download the entire week (continuing to quietly
use the application without having to wait for the download).
– Enlarge and diminish the character of the text, with the flick of the fingers
on the screen (Pinch-to-Zoom)
– The ability to adjust the color of the background for a better
reading of texts
– Application Languages: Italian, Inglese, Español, Deutsch, Française, Românã
– Content Languages: Italian, Inglese, Español, Français, Român?, Latinum
– Languages constantly updated content.
– A new graphical interface

From the press office of the Holy See a notice was just made about some great resources made public in advance of the beatification of John Paul II.

“In view of the beatification of John Paul II on 1 May 2011, Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Centre (CTV) have organised a number of initiatives and made a wide range of documentary material available.

“A new page has also been activated on Facebook concerning John Paul II in view of his beatification. It may be consulted at this address: www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2. All the video clips uploaded to the Youtube channel will be available at the same time on this page.

Here’s the video for the year 2001 which was when I and my family got to personally meet the Holy Father in Rome.

A week ago this morning I got notice that a good friend of mine, Derry Brownfield, had passed away. It was a shock to say the least. My life has been made better by knowing him. Here’s a link to my work blog post that I did when the call came in. I worked with Derry and traveled a lot of miles with him during that time. We spent a lot of time together on those trips, at his cabin, riding fence and checking cows.

This week Cindy and I attended his funeral and then went to the Bury Derry Day Party with his family and friends. He always talked about that day with that name btw. We laughed, cried and drank too much scotch. And I’m glad for that opportunity. He has a great family too. And speaking of family, I felt like part of his family. I heard a number of people who thought of him as a mentor or even father figure. I am in that group. He had a BIG family!

At this funeral, Bob Priddy, Missourinet, did the eulogy which is a wonderful recollection of his life and I’m sharing it here since it was recorded.

So, I’ll say goodbye now to you Derry. You’re always going to be in my prayers. I hope to see you on a happy trail someday.

I have done some serious road time the last two months. I think I just figured out that it has been 28 out of the last 41 days!

But as usual that means the opportunity to visit new churches. In Tampa, FL my wife Cindy and I were able to attend Mass at Sacred Heart in the downtown area. The parish was originally called St. Louis and is now being taken care of by the Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province.

After leaving Tampa Cindy traveled to Reno, NV while I went to Austin, TX. While I was there I went to Ash Wednesday morning Mass at St. Peter the Apostle church.

The church was founded in 1962 and it sounds like it has grown significantly since then.

I’ll be on the road to Washington, DC this week for National Agriculture Day activities and hope to attend Mass there on Tuesday morning.

Don’t you wish Archbishop Fulton Sheen was still being broadcast? I do. However, you can watch lots of videos of him speaking on YouTube. You can also download or listen to lots of audio files too. Here’s a good one I just watched.

It has been a rough last two weeks. I came down with the worst flu bug I can remember and then we had a blizzard with 20 inches of snow in mid Missouri. Cindy and I had to fly to Denver for a convention and then I had to fly to another one in Phoenix. Let’s just say that flying, below zero to 70 degree temps and dry hotel and convention centers are not good for your sinuses! But I survived!

The photo is the altar in St. Mary’s Basilica in Phoenix. It’s conveniently located right across the street from the convention center and has a noon weekday Mass.

Last week I attended Mass one day at the Cathedral of Christ The King in northern Atlanta. I thought I had been to this church before but am pretty sure this was my first visit. Normally, I attend Mass at the Sacred Heart Basilica in downtown Atlanta. You can find the history of the Cathedral on their website.

While there the priest was willing to hear confession! With all this traveling, it makes it difficult to keep up with my devotions but there are some things that just have to be adhered to and frequent confession is one of them.

The 2011 March For Life will be taking place tomorrow in Washington, DC, as have others around the country this weekend including here in Jefferson City, MO. This is to mark the anniversary of the legalization of abortion in America. Since then the estimate is at about 52 million abortions performed. It will drive you crazy if you think about it. 52 million people killed in our country outside of any other type of death (accident, defense of country in military, etc.). It’s too big a number for me to wrap my mind around. And most of those performed just to keep from having the “inconvenience” of a child. It’s the most severe form of birth control.

The recent horror story in Philadelphia with the abortion doctor who is now being charged with multiple accounts of murder contains all the elements of what make abortion so incredibly horrible. You can read the details for yourself. Just do a Google search for it. This story should be the top one in the news but guess what? It’s not. Our news folks are more interested in what President O is going to say about the economy. Yeah. That’s more important than human life.

What it means is that we need to continue to pray and especially for our lawmakers, women facing tough choices and those who have had an abortion. I would like to think this will change in our country some day. I keep praying that it will.

I just noticed on the St. Josemaria Escriva YouTube channel a great video explaining who he was.

Cindy took a picture of our St. Francis statue after last week’s snow storm. That’s the image I use for my Twitter account.

We did have a snowy week and were supposed to get more last night and today. We even went to Saturday evening Mass last night thinking we may not have been able to go this morning. However, Msgr. Higley, prayed that the snow would miss us and he was answered. At least we haven’t received what we expected. Just a light dusting so far.