Spirituality Tips Guides

The Catholic Church, since its inception, has always believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the form o the Eucharist. As a child celebrates their first communion, they too are about to take part in this honored tradition. The Eucharist is the one sacrament that is representative or Christs sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection. The Mass is the vehicle that gives us this special presence.

The teaching that communion was the presence of Jesus and not a symbol goes back the to the council of Trent, which said that the when the bread and wine are consecrated, the whole substance of the bread is transformed into the Body of the Lord. Additionally the same is the whole substance of the wine is transformed into the Precious Blood. When the point in the mass comes and the host is consecrated the church calls this change the transubstantiation. It requires the recipient to have a great faith where as it transcends our human understanding of how this change was made, the mystery of the sacrament of Holy Communion.

The simplest way to explain the concept of real presence is the Eucharist really is the Real Jesus. There are no qualifiers. Catholics do not believe it is a symbol of Jesus. There was a period in time when the belief of Real Presence was threatened. The first occurrence was in the Middle Ages, when some of the French Theologians expressed doubt in the Jesus real presence in the Eucharist. Berengarius of Tours claimed that it was not possible to change the substance of the bread and wine and denied that Christs body was on the altar. He based his argument on the pure fact that Jesus could not be present on Earth prior to the Last Judgment.

Pope Gregory VII demanded that Berengarius to agree with the profession of that that was the outline of faith. The fundamental belief was that without question Jesus was present on the altar. Pope Gregory went on to say that the words are not clearer. That reality means that it is actually Christ in the Eucharist. He said it was the same Christ that was conceived in Nazareth, Born in Bethlehem, died and rose from the dead at Jerusalem and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. It is also the same Christ that will call us when we pass out of time into eternity. It is the same Christ who will appear at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead. It is the Christ who is the Omega of the universe and the goal of human destiny,Pope Gregory concluded. He ended this crisis of faith and Berengarius died in 1088.

The second time this crisis came forth was at the time of the Protestant Reformation. There were similar claims that Berengarian made in the early middle ages. This time the Church used the Council of Trent to reinforce that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

As children wear their communion ties and first communion dresses, there is a great history that long substantiates the basic principle they should have been taught in the communion preparation class, that Jesus is truly present

Faith-full has a full line of First Communion. And a full line of First Communion Gifts

As parents, it is your obligation to ensure that your kids spend a great portion of their time among Christian Youth Groups.

You see, spiritual and moral corruption is widespread nowadays and it is imperative that the youth get Christian moral influences. If you want your youth to grow up in accordance with the teachings of the Lord, let them join Christian Youth Group activities.

Your kids should be a member of a Christian Youth Group so that they are preoccupied after school hours. A lot of youth are busy having fun with their so-called friends. It is very important that as parents, you know the friends of your kids. This way, you can easily tell if they are on the wrong track.

Talk to your kid so that at least he or she will not be forced to follow your will. Tell them that what you’re doing is for their own good. If they are already members of a Christian Youth Group, they can easily participate in educational and responsible activities or opportunities.

At first, your kids might find the youth activities boring but give time to adjust. You’ll see that in the coming days, they will be very excited to participate in the various activities of the group.
What are some of the possible Christian group activities that your kids can participate in?

Fellowship camps are often conducted by the group. A good thing about this camps is that parents can come too so that they can ensure that everything is going responsibly and safely. In the fellowship camps, the youth will be given a chance to go boating, fishing, swimming, play soccer, and the very important activity is to share God’s words in cheerful fellowship.

The internet is also a good place to conduct youth activities. The Christian Youth Group has an online website so that all the members can interact with each other. Your kid will learn a lot because he or she will discover other Christian projects in various countries. Perhaps you’re already aware that the internet can also influence your kids badly.

Now, he or she can have fun while surfing the internet in a moral way. They can even participate in online forums or discussions. They can share their troubles and problems and the other members can give excellent pieces of advice and not only that, you can be sure that every step of the way, your kid is nearer to God.

Adolescence is a period of peer pressure. If don’t want your kid to experience this kind of pressure, get him involved in Christian activities. Don’t let your kids be exposed to alcohol, gambling, and drugs. Temptation is lurking in every corner so protect your kid at all times.

Christian Groups can be found all over the world. Find a Christian Youth Group in your locality now. Have your kid enlisted but as mentioned earlier, tell your kid about it. It’s a good thing if have an open line of communication.

See the positive changes in your kid’s behavior once he or she is already a member of the Christian Youth Group. The center of all the Christian Youth Group activities is God, so rest assured that nothing will go wrong.

Your family can benefit as well because your will have a better relationship with your kids.

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A survey recently conducted by Rest Ministries, the largest Christian organization that serves the chronically ill, asked people to “List some of the programs or resources a church could offer to make it more inviting comfortable.” Below is a sampling of some of the 800+ responses, all of which could be done in 20 minutes or less.

1. Send out encouraging emails.

2. Make sure the handicapped stalls in the restroom are functioning and clean.

3. Add padded chairs or cushions to make church easier to sit through. Room for wheelchairs is always a need and don’t forget to include extra places for family members.

4. An open attitude for a support group like HopeKeepers. It would make me feel very special that there was an understanding of needs that are not always visible.

5. Add more disabled parking, even if they are temporary spots.

6. Educate the ushers that people arriving late may have difficulty walking or getting out of cars and will need some assistance.

7. Have some volunteers who will call the chronically ill people just to check on them when they don’t make it to church.

8. When suppers are given, I need help getting my meal or at least understanding from others that I won’t be able to wait in a long line.

9. Be cautious when giving people big hugs. It can topple over or hurt the person.

10. Video tape the service to and put it on a DVD, don’t just do a live web cast. My computer doesn’t work that well.

11. Check out the church doors. Can someone with an illness open them with ease? If not, install a mechanical button to push them open.

12. Stop telling me that if I really believed and had faith I would be healed by now. Please don’t insist how good I look, because I know for a fact that I look terrible and miserable that day.

13. Offer me ways to serve within the church that can be performed regularly, but not on a set schedule. I really want to contribute, but I need some flexibility so that I can do a job when I feel well enough.

14. Make the sermon notes available to download and print out so I can listen later or even just review what I didn’t catch the first time.

15. Acknowledge National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. Rest Ministries Publishers features a book list of top 100 Christian books for the chronically ill. Having some of those books in our church bookstore as a display would be a great outreach.

16. Just mention chronic illness occasionally! Don’t forget to talk about it in sermons as one of the challenges many people face just like unemployment or divorce.

17. Have Christian volunteers from church that will clean house for small fee. Some have offered to clean my house, but I cannot accept charity yet, but neither can I afford to pay a regular house cleaning service.

18. Have the church help with some of the small costs of providing encouraging books and resources for the church library. The chronically ill often cannot afford all that they’d like to read and will check them out.

19. Remember all of the caregivers in the church–not just caregivers of parents, but spouses and ill children as well.

20. Have copies of sermon for free on CD or computer.

Receive 200 tips from “Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend” by Lisa Copen when you sign up for HopeNotes chronic illness ezine at Rest Ministries. Lisa is the founder of Invisible Illness Awareness Week

God does still speak and you can discover how to hear Him. You can learn how to distinguish God’s voice from your own and hear God every day.

It is possible to learn how to hear God. God will teach you how to know and recognise His voice when you ask Him to help you hear from Him.

And as you grow in your relationship with God, you will become more aware of when you are hearing from God and when it’s simply your own thoughts. The more you communicate with God, the more familiar His voice will become and the more you will hear God speak.

How do you know when you are hearing from God?

It is very easy to confuse your own desires with God speaking to you, especially when something is really important to you. One of the ways of turning down the volume of your own voice is by laying down your own agenda and being open to whatever God wants to speak to you.

When your thoughts or other people’s opinions don’t line up with what God’s word says, you need to be prepared to lay your own thoughts aside and go with what you hear from God.

The enemy’s plan is to confuse you and take you off course, and he will do that in any way that he can. The Bible tells you to resist him, you can easily silence him by speaking the word of God as Jesus did.

Here’s another clue to knowing whether what you hear is from God - if it is God speaking it will lead to peace.

Learning to recognise God’s voice is a process.

As a believer and follower of God you have the Holy Spirit living within you. If you ask the Holy Spirit, He will help you to discern when you are hearing from God.

When you renew your mind with God’s written word and spend time in God’s presence - you have the mind of Christ. The more time you spend renewing your mind with God’s word, the easier it is to discern when it’s God speaking and when it’s just your thoughts.

“My sheep recognise my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27

“The Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and cause you to remember all that I have told you.” John 14:26

You are one of His sheep and you can hear God’s voice. You can be confident that you will hear God and recognise His voice if you belong to Him and follow His ways.

It takes effort, but you can train yourself to recognise when you are hearing God. You learn by practicing and being prepared to make mistakes. Don’t let the fear of making a mistake stop you from stepping out in faith. God is your Father and He will take care of your honest mistakes.

As you stop and spend more time listening for God speaking, you will soon learn to distinguish between the different voices.

The key is to evaluate everything you hear in the light of God’s word.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way. Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong.” Proverbs 3:5-7

Sometimes you will struggle to hear God or you won’t hear God speaking as clearly as you would like. At other times, you’ll think you’ve heard God and respond to what He says only to find that you made a mistake.

If that happens, find out where you got it wrong and don’t let making mistake hold you back from stepping out in faith the next time. God will teach you through your mistakes. It’s much better to allow yourself to make a mistake than never to step out in faith.

The problem for most people is that they’ve been living with abnormality for so long that they don’t even recognise that it’s not normal to go through life without hearing God.

‘Normal’, is hearing God every day.

Is that what you expect? Do you actually schedule time to spend with God every day? Or, do you just try to squeeze Him around everything else you do?

Do you struggle to believe that God will speak to you and that you can hear Him? If you do, then simply confess your lack of faith to God. Ask Him to increase your faith and He will.

Prepare to exercise faith and grow stronger in the things of God. Overcome your doubts and keep on listening for God’s voice.

Stop and give time to listen to God; it’s worth taking time to to discover how to recognise His voice because He has the words of life.

God is speaking to you - choose to believe it. You can learn to how to hear God.

To discover more about How To Hear God, click this link.

Lynne Lee is a Christian life coach and spiritual mentor. She helps people to re-design their lives around what matters most.

How does a person become Catholic? The short answer is to contact the local Catholic Church in their community and ask to speak with the RCIA director or the Adult Education Dept. They will explain the process and periods. The process can take about a year unless you have some type of issue that will not allow you to complete your sacraments. Those type impediments would be former marriages that need to be annulled, use of birth control and co-habitation. Additionally if you have a strong background and understanding in another faith, it may not take as long. Along the way you will hear the word Journey and that.s what the conversion to the Catholic Church will be, a spiritual journey.

So what is RCIA and what is involved with that process? First, RCIA stands for the Rite of Christian initiation of Adults. The year is divided into several parts and each person who are first known as inquiries, will travel though these periods. The Pre-Catechumenate is the first stage. It.s also known as the Period of Inquiry.
Once you have decided to proceed, you will go through3 other periods. They are the Catechumenate, Purification and Enlightenment, which are the 6 weeks of Lent, and Mystagogy, the period after you make your sacraments that runs right though Pentecost.

For now let.s review the Pre-Catechumenate because at this point there is still discernment as to whether or not to go through the process. This is the point that the Inquirer will work though the process and work to become Catholic. So what is involved with this period. The first thing that you can expect is an interview with the RCIA director. This interview will have you tell your story as to why you are seeking out the Catholic Church. It will also identify issues, like above, annulments, co-habitation are serious impediments to coming into the church. Don.t be upset with these questions. It is just a matter to of seeing where you are at and what processes need to be put in place for each person to complete their sacraments should they decide to continue.

The RCIA Director will also ascertain if you have been baptized or not. If you are baptized in a Trinitarian manner, in other words, in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, your Baptism will be accepted by the Catholic Church. If you are unbaptized or Baptized in a faith such as Mormon, you enter the Catechumenate as a catechumen and will be baptized and confirmed at Easter Vigil.

Now is the time for questions. Each of the Pre Catechumenate meetings will give the inquirer the opportunity to challenge the Church and learn from the Catholic Perspective. This is the time to review the Bible and start finding out what the Church Laws or Canon says on topics and how everything in the Church is rooted in the Bible.

You will find you are not alone and that there are others in this group going through this process with you. Reaching back to the early days of the church, you are in a group with other inquirers now. This is rooted in the early church because just as the Apostles went to small communities they worked with small groups towards their conversion to Christianity and you with your parish RCIA team will work towards your conversion

Beth carries many Easter Home Decor including many Confirmation Gifts.

Palm Sunday is the last Sunday of Lent. It is always the start of Holy Week. It is one of the events that is mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. It would seem according to the Gospel of John that just a week prior, Jesus was in Bethany having dinner with Lazarus, Mary and Martha and systematically the Church has the the Cycle A gospel for the 5th Sunday of Lent is Lazarus Sunday.

While in Bethany, the Gospels describe how Jesus had sent two disciples on ahead to find a colt. Some say that Jesus had this already prearranged with Simon the Leper while others say Jesus found this particular colt to ride back through the gates of Jerusalem. The Gospel all go on to say how some lad down palm branches in order to make the ride more comfortable. There was also the description of people singing Psalm 118.

Although depicted in art though the ages, Jesus passing though the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, there is nothing concrete in the Synoptic Gospels that would support this. However, the reciprocal though and why the belief is held that Jesus did pass though the Golden Gate is because as the Messiah, this would be the only way He could enter Jerusalem. There are some scholars who want to say that he entered though the southern part of the city that had the stairs that lead directly to Temple Mount because that makes more sense.

Though history , there have always been reenactment of the events of Jesus triumphant returned. The custom of the use of palms has a long history and harkens back the Old Testament. According to the Hebrew Bible Joshua also made a similar ride and was treated to the same way.

Even more interestingly is that many of the Pre-Christian religions also have similar stories of their central figure returning to the holiest city and be greeted in this manner. A prime example of this was Dionysus/Bacchus , the Greek god of Wine. There are several parallels that can be drawn between Dionysus and Jesus, including Rustic Dionysia, or Christmas on December 25th. And in Euripides Bacchae, there is a similar story of how Dionysus was arrested and questioned by Pentheus, very similar to how Jesus was arrested and brought before Pilot. In this story Dionysus returns much the same way Jesus returned to the Holy City in a triumphant manner on Palm Sunday.

The palm branch itself that was used was also symbolic. It was deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and is mentioned in the old testament book of Leviticus (23:40). The passage says: And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days. This addresses the use of palms as well as the seven days between Palm Sunday and the Resurrection/Easter Sunday. Its though this act of waving palms and making a path for Jesus with the Palms that Palm Sunday has gotten its name.

Beth has a full line of Lent Decorations and Easter Decorations