DAY 34: Holy Week

     Well, tomorrow officially starts Holy Week in the Catholic Church and in some of the other Christian Churches. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and I will be receiving blessed palm fronds at church. These fronds will be formed into a cross(see picture) and hung in my bedroom until next year.
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/palm_wc.html
 Holy Week is the week before Christ's death and resurrection. It consists of Palm Sunday, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Spy Wednesday, Holy (Maundy) Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday (Black Sabbath, Easter Eve) and finally Easter. (http://www.thenazareneway.com/holy_week/fasting_to_feasting.htm)

     I'm sure many of you know the story of how Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem on a donkey and on a Sunday; the people laid palm fronds down before Him. Jesus was entering Jerusalem for a great feast- a celebration- Passover. (Passover goes back to the the Old Testament- Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. The week of plagues ending in the death of the Pharaoh's son and how the angel passed over the doors of those with the blood of a lamb spread across the doorway (Exodus 7-11) resulted in the celebration the Jewish people call Passover. This year Passover takes place from April 19-26.) Anyways, Jesus was entering the city on what Christians now call Palm Sunday. Thus the palm fronds at church : )
     Holy Monday and Tuesday are fairly new to me, but some theologians believe that these are the days Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple and when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus into being blasphemous respectively. Spy Wednesday was the day Judas Iscariot became a betrayer. Holy Thursday was the Last Supper...
     And then we come to Good Friday. I used to wonder why it was called "good" if Jesus died. The answer: Jesus died and gave us our salvation. As the below website says, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_it_called_Good_Friday_if_the_day_was_supposed_to_be_sad  it is also the day He triumphed over sin, death, and the devil. This is the day Jesus died on the cross- for you, for me, for everyone.
     Holy Saturday or Black Sabbath (black is for death and the Sabbath was, during Christ's time, on Saturday) was a day of mourning. The day after Jesus was buried and laid behind the stone. This day is often a baptismal day in Catholic and Anglican Churches. It is also sometimes called Easter Eve.

     Sunday is EASTER!!!!! and Christ rises from the dead. Enough said?


Happy Holy Week everyone and enjoy your last week of Lent!     

DAY 33: Where are the Catholics?

Matthew 6: 2  --> 'So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.'

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     I have many Protestant friends. Many, if not all, have told me about mission trips they've been on or are planning. Growing up in an older community, Catholic kids and teens don't always see the giving and caring done by the Catholic Church. For a while, I asked myself: "Why doesn't the Catholic Church have mission trips?" Well, for one thing, we do... there is even a website (http://www.catholicmissiontrips.net/home/) that has upcoming missions trips in Texas, New Mexico, New Orleans, Belize and Honduras.
     The thing about the Catholic Church is that we are present in so many places around the world. My youth director mentioned last Sunday that some people commented on how the Church never arrived on scene in any of the recent disasters around the world (Chile, Haiti, Japan...) For those who have said this, let me make this clear. The Church was there. The church was the first to arrive in Haiti (probably because its a dominant part of Haitian culture) and  it is STILL there- even when other organizations have left the country for bigger disaster zones. Not to mention Japan, Chile and other disaster zones that are still being helped by the Catholic Church.
      Catholic missionaries, although they are also found in common people like you and me, are found in the nuns. Like I mentioned yesterday, nuns often play the role of missionaries. One of the priests at my church funds an orphanage in Uganda. My point? People may not see the Church because they are expecting teenage boys and girls building houses like so many of my Protestant friends are. But that's not all the church does. There is Operation Rice Bowl, for example, that builds irrigation systems for Ethiopian farmers (http://crs-blog.org/catholics-help-farmers-in-ethiopia-via-operation-rice-bowl/.)

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     The Bible verse at the top sums up my view on Catholic mission trips. We may not see them, but they are there. The next verse (Matthew 6:3) says "do not let your left hand know what the right is doing..." Is that maybe why I had never heard of Catholic mission trips until the past couple of years? Or is it that we do not "sound a trumpet," as Matthew puts it?

DAY 32: Catholic nuns

                                                     8 more posts; 10 days till Easter!


          Becoming a nun was one of the only ways women could be involved in the Church during the middle ages. Now women can do many things.... from serving the Eucharist to reading the Bible for the congregation. Women can be sisters or nuns or lectors; the world is changing. For example, not all nuns wear habits- the dress and head covering worn my nuns and popularized by movies like Julie Andrews in " The Sound of Music" or "Sister Act" with Whoopi Goldberg. (http://www.catholicnunstoday.org/who-we-are.asp) My parent's generation had nun's for teachers and so did some of my friends. Nun's still teach but there are fewer and they are not the hitting -kid's- knuckles- with- rulers kind.
     There are different orders (groups) of nuns. There are the Dominicans, Franscican, Carmelites, Benedictites.... Each has a seperate "job" they do. Dominicans teach. Franscicans spread God's Gospel. Carmelites nurse. Benedictines pray...  And each wear different habits:
   
Franscican                                                     Benedictine                                       CArmelite

                                              
                                                        Dominican

     There is a differnce between nuns and sisters. According to http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/nun.htm, nuns live in cloisters and are dedicated to their specific job and sisters are able to move about, don't necessarily wear habits and are mostly missionaries. In the Carmelite orders, it takes about 5 years to get your black veil and become  "a bride of Christ forever!" (http://www.sistersofcarmel.org/) The Sisters of Carmel must meet these qualifications:

18 to 30 years of age Good health and sound judgment Good character and high moral principles Spirit of optimism and cheerfulness Love of prayer and desire for divine union Desire to commit oneself to Our Lord and His Church for the salvation of souls Confident belief in Christ’s promise to sanctify and unite Himself intimately with all those who give themselves generously to Him

The steps for become a full-fledged nun in the Carmelite orders are postulancy, noviatite, temporary professsion, and perpetual profession.


Well, I'm going to bounce out of here. Ta-ta for now!

DAY 31: (Eucharistic) Adoration

                                                   
     What is Adoration? Adoration is essentially honoring the precense of God in Eucharistic form. (Catholics believe that Jesus truly is the Eucharist. We take the words "This is my body; this is my blood." literally. "The Eucharist is: Jesus truly present  - Body( in the flesh), Blood, Soul, and Divinity")
     In Adoration, Catholics sit and pray- opening ourselves to God in His Holy Magnificence. We sit facing the altar and the monstrance. The monstrance is the special holder of the Holy Eucharist. (see above picture) The word monstrance comes from the Latin word monstrare, meaning "to expose." When the priest places the Eucharist in the monstrance, he does not touch it. Instead he "holds it with a humeral veil, a wide band of cloth that covers his shoulders (humera) and has pleats on the inside in which he places his hands." The monstrance is placed on the altar where everyone can see and worship.

     If you have never been to Adoration, you have never experienced the power that radiates throughout the church from that tiny piece of flesh. I may have only been to adoration once, but, as many people say, it's a life changing experience. It's like a preview of Christ's radiance before we meet Him in heaven. The time I went to adoration, I went after confession and did my penace in the chapel. After praying my penace, I just sat there with my eyes closed- I didn't want to move; I couldn't move... The energy I felt in the room was amazing. Have you ever prayed over someone with a bunch of people? Did you feel the power of prayer in your hands? That's what I felt. God truly amazed me that day.

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/pea/a2.html and http://www.catholic-church.org/kuwait/eucharistic_adoration.htm

DAY 30: Salvation

      In the eighth grade, I went to a Protestant Church. My friend asked me if I was "saved." Saved? I asked her. What do you mean by saved? I didn't understand that to be saved one has to have a relationship with Christ and believe that He died for our sins and rose from the dead. That's all. So once I understood that.I was able to say "Yes, I'm saved." All Catholics can freely say that they are, by Protestant standards, "saved."
     I suppose in the early Protestant church- especially during the witch hunts- being "saved" meant something different. In the early days of America, although I have no proof of this, I think it would have meant that you were going to heaven and you knew it. I know that during that time period, many believed you could save your soul through good deeds. Even the Catholics in the Middle Ages, sad to say, allowed people to pay to have their sins erased. However, the Bible states that neither of these ways will eradicate sin. Sins can only be erased through Christ- the Way, the Truth, and the Light.

     According to http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap020600.htm Catholics can say that they have been saved, are being saved and will be saved based on these three Bible verses: 1 Cor 15:2, 2 Cor 5:17, and Rom 5:9. We are continually being saved through God's grace and mercy. We just have to give him the chance to forgive us through confession.

 

 

    

DAY 29: Food for Lent/ Easter : )

     Easter is drawing closer, guys. Let's see I have 11 more posts to meet my challenge (eek!) and there are exactly 13 days left until Easter and Jesus' Resurrection. (Does anyone else find that Easter is such a happy word? Just typing the word, puts me in a more joyful mood...) So, I thought I'd take a break from all of the serious Catholic stuff and talk about food.

    There are various foods that have their origins in the Easter and Lenten seasons. One such food is the pretzel. The pretzel is thought to have originated in the early Roman Catholic Empire about 500 CE. "In the old Roman Empire, the faithful kept a very strict fast all through Lent: no milk, no butter, no cheese, no eggs, no cream and no meat. They made small breads of water, flour and salt, to remind themselves that Lent was a time of prayer. They shaped these breads in the form of crossed arms for in those days they crossed their arms over the breast while praying. Therefore they called the breads 'little arms' (bracellae). From this Latin word, the Germanic people later coined the term 'pretzel.'"(http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=543)
      Actually, that traditional fast of no meat, butter, eggs, etc. during Lent is held by the Orthodox Christians as well. In Greece, the number of meals on each day is limited and olive oil and wine are restricted. How many people still uphold those traditions is uncertain, but isn't interesting to see how other people live and eat?(http://greekfood.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/greatlent.htm) 

     Another Easter food was a sweet bread that actually originated in paganism as offerings to ancient deities. (http://breadbaking.about.com/od/dessertandholidaybreads/r/hotcrossbuns.htm) However, it supposedly became a Christian food when Britain's Queen Elizabeth I legalized the buns during Christmas, Easter or funerals. It was either that or the Anglican monk who placed crosses on the pagan buns to honor Good Friday. (http://www.rheinlanderbakery.com/Category.cfm?CategoryID=42 and http://mycountrycookin.com/easter-food-origin-facts/)

     Easter eggs find their tradition partially in the fact that nobody was allowed to eat them during the Lenten Season and also as a symbol of rebirth. As http://www.holidays.net/easter/eggs.htm states, crimson eggs honor the blood of Christ in Greece, in parts of Germany and Austria green eggs are used on Maundy (Holy) Thursday and in Austria, artists design patterns by fastening ferns and tiny plants around the eggs. Wow.

     Okay, well, that's all for today! Hope you enjoyed it!