Blogposts

Jesus Christ prays for us and in us and is the object of our prayers

03-31-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard Villa

God could give no greater gift to men than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, their head and to join them to him as his members, so that the Word might be both Son of God and son of man, one God with the Father, and one man with all men. The result is that when we speak with God in prayer we do not separate the Son from him, and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself: it is the one Savior of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us and in us and is himself the object of our prayers.

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Greed is a Real Sin. The Tenth Commandment You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

03-24-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

There is a lot of talk on the streets and in the media about a thing called “corporate greed.” This greed is supposed to reside in entities called corporations that are somehow exploiting people to make a profit by valuing profit over people. The only problem with this construction is that a corporation is a “legal person,” but it is not a real person. And greed, being a sin, can only be committed by real persons; it cannot be committed by corporations. Because they are legal persons, corporations can break the law and be punished by the law, by fines or judgments, but they cannot sin. Sin requires human agency.

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Hollywood and Christianity

03-17-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Any observer of films/TV programs coming from Hollywood today can see that Christianity and particularly Catholicism is often presented in a negative light. Why is that? Don Feder sought to answer that question in an essay years ago for Front Page Magazine. He asserted that Hollywood hates authentic Christians because the Faith is diametrically opposed to the worldview of a good many of the producers, actors, and directors who control Hollywood. What is that Hollywood worldview?

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Why Did Jesus Pray?

03-10-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

The omnipotent God does not need to ask for anything because He has the power to effect whatever He wills. Jesus was fully God, so why does He pray? If well understood, the answer to this question will shed light on many of the highest mysteries of the Faith. Understanding the principle that will be discussed in this short article is the key to understanding some of the most obscure doctrines, such as divine providence, predestination, and free will. Here is the principle that must be understood before answering why Christ prayed. (St.)Thomas says: Divine providence disposes not only what effects shall take place, but also from what causes and in what order these effects shall proceed. To put it another way, God determines not only what happens but also how it happens.

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The Battle Station, Station Days, Station Churches

03-03-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Station days were days of fasting in the early Christian Church, associated with a procession to certain prescribed churches in Rome, where the Mass and Vespers would be celebrated to mark important days of the liturgical year. Station days grew out of the early Christian practice of visiting the tombs of the martyrs and celebrating the Eucharist at those sites. By the fourth century, the practice of carrying out an itinerary to various churches of the city began to develop during the days of Lent. In those days it became a tradition for the pope to visit a church in each part of the city and celebrate Mass with the congregation.

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--All

There is a lot of talk on the streets and in the media about a thing called “corporate greed.” This greed is supposed to reside in entities called corporations that are somehow exploiting people to make a profit by valuing profit over people. The only problem with this construction is that a corporation is a “legal person,” but it is not a real person. And greed, being a sin, can only be committed by real persons; it cannot be committed by corporations. Because they are legal persons, corporations can break the law and be punished by the law, by fines or judgments, but they cannot sin. Sin requires human agency. Where corporations figure in this human agency, is in providing cover for the sins of individuals and/or being a means by which the sin is carried out.

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Defilement in the Cathedral and Its Meaning

02-25-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

…. the radical subversion of normal human life in the name of a paranoid metaphysical delusion. Edward Feser (see below)

You may have read about or seen this on the internet. It was reported worldwide: At a funeral service on February 15 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, men dressed as women and women dressed as men turned out to honor Cecilia Gentili.

Gentili is a man who falsely claimed to be a woman. He was an illegal alien, a drug addict, prostitute, trans-activist and atheist .This was the correct depiction of what happened in the Cathedral on the website of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. https://www.catholicleague.org/trans-activists-defile-st-patricks-cathedral/ Catholic journalist Philip Lawler put it this way: The grotesque “funeral service” for Cecilia Gentilli was a carefully planned ploy to use a renowned Catholic church as the stage for an event glorifying sexual perversity. Sadly, it worked—and the cathedral was desecrated in the process. And because it was successful, we can all be sure that other LGBT activists will try it again. And again and again.

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Lent & Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus

02-18-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

The primary purpose of the devotion is to make reparation for sins against the first three commandments: Denial of God, Blasphemy, and the profanation of Sundays and Holy Days.

Devotion to the Holy Face was revealed by Jesus to Sr. Marie of St. Peter (1816-1848) a Carmelite nun of Tours in France. The devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, based on the life and writings of Sr. Marie of St. Peter, was eventually approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1885 who established the devotion as an Arch-confraternity for the whole world.

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Counterfeits……….

02-11-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

A common tactic of Satan is to imitate or counterfeit the things of God in order to make himself appear to be like God. What is commonly referred to as the “unholy trinity,” is described vividly in Revelation 12 and 13. . The Holy Trinity consists of God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Their counterfeits in the unholy trinity are Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. While the Holy Trinity is characterized by infinite truth, love, and goodness, the unholy trinity portrays the diametrically opposite traits of deception, hatred, and unadulterated evil. Satan is the anti-God, the Beast from the sea is the anti-Christ, and the beast from the earth or the False Prophet is the anti-Spirit. This unholy trinity will persecute believers and deceive many others, resulting in their eternal death. But God’s kingdom will prevail. Daniel 7:21–22 states, “I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.”

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Why Pre-Lent or Shrovetide?

02-04-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Pre-Lent in the West

Shrovetide, also known as the Pre-Lenten Season, is the Christian period of preparation before the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent. The preparation marks seventy, sixty, and fifty days before Easter. Ash Wednesday begins the forty days of Lent. The word shrove is a form of the English word shrive, which means to give absolution for someone's sins by way of Confession and doing penance. Thus Shrove Tuesday was named after the custom of Christians to be "shriven" before the start of Lent.

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Septuagesima: Farewell Alleluia. A New Year of Grace

01-28-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Pius Parsch once cogently argued that the Liturgical Year - the Church's Year of Grace - doesn't begin with Advent Sunday, but with Septuagesima Sunday! For at Septuagesima, the Matins Lesson begin "In the beginning...", with Genesis chapter one, verse one. The sober liturgy proceeds through the account of Man's Creation and Fall, and then through the Patriarchs and God's continual call of them back from doom to salvation - at Sexagesima, Noë and the Flood; at Quinquagesima, the call of Abraham.

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The Continuing Crisis: Particular Battles

01-21-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

There is and has been a continuing crisis in the Church of long duration. Bishop Fulton Sheen predicted years ago a future destructive anti-church or counter church. More on that in a future essay. The crisis involves those, who no longer believe the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Catholic Church, while claiming to be Catholic; and the effort within the Church to conform her morality and teaching to the world’s agendas especially in the area of marriage and sexuality. The crisis involves the metastasis of a false teaching called modernism condemned by St. Pius X in the early part of last century.

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What Is the Cause of Unbelief?

01-14-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

The Gospel reveals this to us: ….Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. John. 3:19-20 Unbelief is sinful because the world is able to believe: the Light has come into the world and has shone in the darkness, to people is given the possibility of exiting the darkness and come into the light. But only he who freely desires it arrives at the light and people often prefer darkness to the light. What is the reason for this mistaken choice?

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The Apotheosis of Sports

01-07-2024Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

The god Ever Before Our Eyes (edited) …(E)verything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses Juvenal Satire 10 (Quote added)

... One recent campaign asked riders on New York City subway trains, “When you count the loves of your life, is sports first or second?” Another, seen at city bus stops, queried, “Without sports, who would we follow?” And, “Without sports, would anyone believe in miracles?” The terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games were crazed. But when they called sports “the religion of the Western world” and the Olympics its “most sacred ceremony,” they might have been onto something.

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