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Friday, February 03, 2012

Bishop: Reducing Poverty Will Help Bring About the Kingdom

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (CNS)—While Jesus said we will "always have the poor" with us, "if each of us stops on his or her own journey to help a neighbor in need, the kingdom of God will come closer to realization each day," said Bishop George V. Murry ...
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Blaise: We know more about the devotion to St. Blaise by Christians around the world than we know about the saint himself. His feast is observed as a holy day in some Eastern Churches. The Council of Oxford, in 1222, prohibited servile labor in England on Blaise’s feast day. The Germans and Slavs hold him in special honor and for decades many United States Catholics have sought the annual St. Blaise blessing for their throats
<p>We know that Bishop Blaise was martyred in his episcopal city of Sebastea, Armenia, in 316. The legendary <i>Acts of St. Blaise</i> were written 400 years later. According to them Blaise was a good bishop, working hard to encourage the spiritual and physical health of his people. Although the Edict of Toleration (311), granting freedom of worship in the Roman Empire, was already five years old, persecution still raged in Armenia. Blaise was apparently forced to flee to the back country. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but he made friends with the wild animals. One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheater stumbled upon Blaise’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions and bears.</p><p>As the hunters hauled Blaise off to prison, the legend has it, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat. At Blaise’s command the child was able to cough up the bone.</p><p>Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia, tried to persuade Blaise to sacrifice to pagan idols. The first time Blaise refused, he was beaten. The next time he was suspended from a tree and his flesh torn with iron combs or rakes. (English wool combers, who used similar iron combs, took Blaise as their patron. They could easily appreciate the agony the saint underwent.) Finally, he was beheaded.</p>

To give drink to the thirsty is now, as it was then, a supreme work of mercy in that it involves giving the living water of the Spirit to those who cry out for him.

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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Jesus taught us that we are the adopted children of God and will do all that he did and more. What will it take for us to believe that we have this kind of authority?

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