Smile for the Day: Cårven Der Pümpkîn

In honor of it being that time of year, the Swedish Chef is at it again.

Prayer of St. Augustine

A Beautiful Song!!

"Know Thyself"

I've had extra time on my hands lately, and so decided to delve deeper into who I am. I've taken personality tests/etc. before (such as the Myers-Briggs - I am most likely an ISFP if you are curious) but thought it was time to revisit where I am now, and perhaps where I've been in the past.

When we gain better knowledge of ourselves, we are better able to conquer our faults and disordered attitudes/attachments which often can cause us to sin. Having a deep knowledge of self is one of the best ways in advancing in the spiritual life and toward the perfection that Jesus calls us to; always with the help of His grace of course.

One of the ways in which to do this, keep in mind this is only one, is to study the temperments, and find out which one describes you best. There are four: The Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Most people are a mixture of two. I highly recommend taking some time to read Rev. Conrad Hock's The Four Temperments which can be found online in full text. There is a test at the end which you can take to better help you discern which temperment(s) fit you. It's also wonderful because he looks at it from a Catholic perspective.

I also found some good summaries online of the four temperaments by Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, O.P. Here is Post I on the Sanguine and Melancholic, and Post II on the Choleric and Phlegmatic.

Happy discovering. :-)

P.S. I had a curious mixture of the four temperaments, but my highest score was predominantly the melancholic.

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."
~St. Augustine

"Know thyself, or at least keep renewing the acquaintance."
 ~Robert Brault

Have you used your spiritual weapon lately?

October is the month of the Rosary.

"Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer." ~Psalm 61:1

For all of you readers out there, first, I pray God has blessed you and keeps you close in His heart. 

I have a request for all of you. I would like to ask for your prayers. I am in great need of employment. I have been out of work for three months. Please say a quick Hail Mary or Our Father for me, and ask St. Joseph to pray for me too. 

If any of you ever have any prayer requests, I would love to pray for you! Please let me know. Leave a comment on here or on my prayer requests page.

God's Peace to you.



"For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope..."
~Jeremiah 29:11

"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
~Isaiah 40:31

"Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."
~Romans 12:12

"And He told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart."
~Luke 18:1

"Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?"
~Matthew 7:7-11

"Let the Waters Rise"

A beautiful video, and an amazing song. Enjoy.

Feast of Blessed Pope John XXIII

"If God created shadows it was to better emphasize the light."

"It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope."

"The feelings of my smallness and my nothingness always kept me good company."

"The council now beginning rises in the Church like the daybreak, a forerunner of most splendid light."

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do."

"The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone."

"The family is the first essential cell of human society."

"What matters most to the good Christian community, and what may be taken as the measure of true spiritual fervor, is the love of Jesus in His Sacrament, the faithful attendance at His tabernacle."

"Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas."

"I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart."

"This era in which we live is in the grip of deadly errors; it is torn by deep disorders...But is also an era which offers to those who work with the Church immense possibilities in the field of the apostolate...and therein lies our hope."

Pope John Paul II on Blessed John XXIII:

"Everyone remembers the image of Pope John's smiling face and two outstretched arms embracing the whole world. How many people were won over by his simplicity of heart, combined with a broad experience of people and things! The breath of newness he brought certainly did not concern doctrine, but rather the way to explain it; his style of speaking and acting was new, as was his friendly approach to ordinary people and to the powerful of the world. It was in this spirit that he called the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, thereby turning a new page in the Church's history Christians heard themselves called to proclaim the Gospel with renewed courage and greater attentiveness to the "signs" of the times. The Council was a truly prophetic insight of this elderly Pontiff who, even amid many difficulties, opened a season of hope for Christians and for humanity. In the last moments of his earthly life, he entrusted his testament to the Church: "What counts the most in life is blessed Jesus Christ, his holy Church, his Gospel, truth and goodness".
~Pope John Paul II

Do You Love Life?

40 Days for Life Campaigns are at work all across the country. If you have not participated, you still can. Say a Rosary for the Right to Life of all the unborn, from conception until natural death. Most importantly, PRAY daily for an end to abortion.

"A great prayer for LIFE is urgently needed, a prayer which will rise up throughout the world. Through special initiatives and in daily prayer, may an impassioned plea rise to God, the Creator and lover of life, from every Christian community, from every group and association, from every family and from the heart of every believer.”

~ Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life
(Evangelium Vitae), n. 100.

A most beautiful song: Ave Maria (Schubert) - Andrea Bocelli

Enjoy!! In honor of Our Lady!

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary

"The traditional image of Our Lady of the Rosary portrays Mary who with one arm supports the Child Jesus and with the other is offering the Rosary Beads to St. Dominic. This important iconography shows that the Rosary is a means given by the Virgin to contemplate Jesus and, in meditating on His life, to love Him and follow Him ever more faithfully. It is this message that Our Lady has also bequeathed to us in her various apparitions. I am thinking in particular of the apparition in Fatima...Presenting herself as Our Lady of the Rosary she insistently recommended the daily recitation of the Rosary to the three little shepherd children, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, in order to obtain the end of the war. Let us also accept the Virgin's motherly request, pledging to recite the Rosary with Faith for peace in families, nations and throughout the world."
~Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Oct. 7, 2010

"To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."

~Pope John Paul II

"The Rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the Rosary is beyond description."
~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

"Among all the devotions approved by the Church none has been so favored by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary."
~Pope Pius IX

"The Rosary is the compendium of the entire Gospel."
~Pope Pius XII

"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary: either they will give up sin or they will give up the Rosary."
~Bishop Hugh Doyle

"It has always been the habit of Catholics in danger and in troublous times to fly for refuge to Mary, and to seek for peace in her maternal goodness; showing that the Catholic Church has always, and with justice, put all her hope and trust in the Mother of God. And truly the Immaculate Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God and thereby associated with Him in the work of man's salvation, has a favour and power with her Son greater than any human or angelic creature has ever obtained, or ever can gain."
~Pope Leo XIII, 1883 Encyclical on Devotion of the Rosary

"I myself have often encouraged the frequent recitation of the Rosary. From my youthful years this prayer has held an important place in my spiritual life...The Rosary has accompanied me in moments of joy and in moments of difficulty. To it I have entrusted any number of concerns; in it I have always found comfort. Twenty-four years ago, on 29 October 1978, scarcely two weeks after my election to the See of Peter, I frankly admitted: “The Rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvellous prayer!...Against the background of the words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the complete series of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, and they put us in living communion with Jesus through – we might say – the heart of his Mother. At the same time our heart can embrace in the decades of the Rosary all the events that make up the lives of individuals, families, nations, the Church, and all mankind. Our personal concerns and those of our neighbour, especially those who are closest to us, who are dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life.”"
~Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter on the The Rosary of the Virgin Mary


Resources on the Rosary: What is the Rosary? and How to pray it, History behind the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Lepanto - 1874 Poem by G.K. Chesterton, Apostolic Letter - The Rosary of the Virgin Mary by Pope John Paul II, 1883 Encyclical - Devotion of the Rosary by Pope Leo XIII,

St. Faustina, Pray for us!

"God is very generous and does not deny His grace to anyone. Indeed he gives more than what we ask of Him. Faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit-that is the shortest route."

"Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity."
~Jesus to St. Faustina, Diary 699

"If souls would put themselves completely in my care, I myself would undertake the task of sanctifying them, and I would lavish even greater graces on them. There are souls who thwart My efforts, but I have not given up on them; as often as they turn to Me, I hurry to their aid, sheilding them with My mercy, and I give them the first place in My compassionate Heart.
~Jesus to St. Faustina, Diary 59


Related Posts: Divine Mercy, On the Life of St. Faustina

An Amazing Story: Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson: "I saw the baby fighting for its life!"

Here's the link on Youtube since the video doesn't seem to work here

Reception of St. Vincent Archabbey Novices 2010

I know I've been posting a lot of videos lately, I hope to remedy that soon. ;) In the meantime, I had to share this. A friend of mine (Brother Joachim) was accepted to the Novitiate at St. Vincent Archabbey this past July. Here's some video coverage of the blessed event.

Incredible Testimony by Gianna Jessen - Abortion Survivor

Take a few minutes and listen to her amazing story. Her witness is just incredible. For more information, visit her website, or find her on twitter.


PART I




PART II