Archbishop José H. Gomez, in his column to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles published biweekly in Angelus News, reminded the faithful that lent is a good time to reflect on and center their lives on their purpose.
“We enter into Lent for a second year now under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. Since last Lent, we have seen our lives disrupted and disordered by this deadly disease. Our faith has been tried and tested in many ways,” wrote Archbishop Gomez. “My prayer this year is that we will make this Lent a time to renew our trust in the Lord, to strengthen our confidence in God’s personal love for each one of us.”
To help guide the faithful through the 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Office of Digital Media launched a digital “Lenten Kit” today on lacatholics.org/lent including a calendar with reflection topics for each day, desktop and phone wallpaper as a reminder to trust in the Lord during Lent, and prayer card. All materials are available in English and Spanish and available at lacatholics.org/lenten-kit. Daily Lenten reflections in English and Spanish will be posted on lacatholics.org/lent. The faithful are encouraged to share their Lenten journeys on social media using #LACatholicsTrust.
“God is in charge, in the world and in our lives. What we cannot understand today, we will understand tomorrow. The scandal of evil, the innocent who suffer, the hardships that we and our loved ones must endure — in everything God is working according to his mysterious and loving purposes,” wrote Archbishop Gomez. “We need to grow in our trust in the Lord. We need to entrust ourselves more and more to his tender care and seek more and more to do his will in everything.”
Full story at Diocese of Los Angeles website.
It would be easier to trust if there were something, anything, perceptible that “God is working.” Asking people to trust when all that happens is that things get worse and worse, is almost a cop-out. You’re saying you don’t have any good answers yourself and God isn’t providing any either, and faith isn’t delivering anything, so you just fall back on asking people to trust in God’s mysterious ways, hoping that they won’t ask critical questions. Then you can zap them with the “zinger” that if they do question they lack faith and trust. I wish bishops would be honest about their struggles with faith. When you trust, eventually something good is supposed to happen. So far… nothing. Tomorrow we will understand? I bet not. I bet tomorrow will be much the same as today, maybe worse.
smh
Kevin T., you sound as if you are suffering from depression. Your problem might be biological too. Go out and get some sunshine and exercise if you can, or even walk in light rain. Get away from the computer and all the bad news for awhile. When I go out, I find most people are behaving decently. Make a gratitude list of what blessings you do have. Archbishop Sheen once said that listening to bad news all the time is like pressing cut glass to ones breast. We feel much better when we get away from it awhile. I know we get bad news in our inboxes, but delete and unsubscribed if you get too much.
“
Depression, anxiety and just plain old burnout.
I agree that you should get away from what is upsetting you.
If you can, pray a daily holy hour.
Remember why you care about the Church.
Decide who you want to be and go be it. (Hopefully, you want to be a saint.)
Tomorrow is a term for the general future. It can take a couple years of even a couple of decades to understand how God cared for you when you thought you were abandoned.
I am sure you know “Footprints.”.
People have lost the concept of God as purifying us through suffering, of separating good from evil, of punishing sin, that we need to carry our cross.
I just saw a video of Steve Harvey telling about how God got him a car. God delivers.
He interprets Habbukuk 2:2 as meaning to make vision boards. He got the car.
Some people use a God bag or box where they put their petitions or their worries into a bag or box and then they leave them to God.
I believe in persevering in prayer. It is what the Lord said to do.
I am in a situation of being financially cheated by a relative. I give it to God but then I start trying to take it back. I need to leave it alone and let God act. He has shown me that if I needed the money I would have it and that it will be a burden and endanger my soul and my marriage. He has shown me that this relative is in mortal sin and headed toward hell. So sometimes the reason isn’t what you think it might be. It is usually something that you need to change in yourself or that another soul needs your prayers.
Footprints is a sappy, non-scriptural, non-doctrinal poem designed to manipulate people spiritually. “When you were suffering, t was then that I carried you?” Why not have a poem about an abused wife and her husband says, “When I beat you and abandoned you, it was then that I was loving you.”
The point of Footprints is that God is always with you. He always cares for you.
Catholic teaching: God is always with you. God is everywhere. God’s care for His creatures is constant.
I am truly sorry that you are in such a dark place and I will pray for you.
The care should be more explicit. Be specific: you refer vaguely to “caring”. In the Footprints poem, how specifically did God carry the reader of the poem? You won’t be able to say. That’s spiritual manipulation. The poem leaves the reader to fill in the blank, and the way the reader fills it in probably won’t be accurate. To say vaguely that God cares without showing directly how, when, where and to what result isn’t helpful. In court it would be called leading the witness.
Anonymous, I can’t tell you how happy I am for you that you do not get it. I hope you never get it for the rest of your life. God bless you.
Yep, it got worse “tomorrow”. The day after Archbishop Gomez’s Ash Wednesday statement, his diocese released this video of the opening event in the virtual 2021 Religious Education Congress:
https://youtu.be/J4EWt2e8OsA?t=836
Far from understanding God’s mysterious ways, I’m perplexed, exasperated, angry that that thoroughly embarrassing video is thought by the President of the USCCB, the bishop of the most populous archdiocese in the U.S., and his entire catechetical office to be an effective tool of evangelization.
Lousy, cheesy music. Prancers, dances, leapers. Poorly edited lip-synching. Cheap video production and editing. That’s what the Archdiocese of LA has to offer Catholics and the world as a message of hope? A message of faith? A message of inspiration?
The Church has huge problems. That video will discourage and deflate people with good judgment, Catholics who love the Lord and who earnestly want what’s best for the Church. People like me. It’s all so discouraging.
I don’t get why the Church is so incompetent at it’s primary mission: evangelization. I don’t get why God doesn’t provide assistance to his Church to minister more effectively.
That video makes most people recoil and cringe.
Thank you for the link. I watched the first hour of it. I do not desire to criticize it but to see what God is trying to say through it. It is good to see people out in nature after spending the last year stuck at home. It is good to see people with hope and who aren’t cutting other people down.
Saul’s daughter criticized David’s dancing and she never got to experience intimacy with him again.
You did see the part with the three things that block the Holy Spirit, right?
It is a message of hope, a message of promise and a message of covenant.
I think how often you have dismissed prayer, especially consecration to the Ark of the Covenant. I pray that God will lift the dark clouds that are over you so that you can see His rainbow,
Did you hear Sister Meza gushingly quote from Catholic abortion supporter Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem at the end of her speech? What was she thinking? Irresponsible for the chief catechetical officer in the diocese to do that.
Some people don’t hate.
Some people don’t think as they should.
I watched the video. If God is “trying to say” anything through it, seems to me he could have found a better way to say it. In these days of Facebook, Apple, Google, Disney+, Netflix and so on, people expect much better quality media. God should know that. And how de we know God is “trying to say” anything in it at all? Maybe it is just musicians and their narcissism on display. Narcissim was one of the things that blocks the Holy Spirit.
Just like Jesus Christ Superstar?
Josh Gable, if you were asked to do something for the Church, you would do it to the best of your ability in the time and with the tools that you had to do it. And you wouldn’t want to be criticized by people who had not done anything.
“The Church has huge problems. That video will discourage and deflate people with good judgment, Catholics who love the Lord and who earnestly want what’s best for the Church. People like me. It’s all so discouraging.
I don’t get why the Church is so incompetent at it’s primary mission: evangelization. I don’t get why God doesn’t provide assistance to his Church to minister more effectively.”
The left hand is not supposed to know what the right hand is doing. You are supposed to do it as if you are the only one.
I wish we had better materials to evangelize with. I wish everyone wasn’t so shy about it.
If you don’t like their video, make your own. Lots of Catholics have started their own websites and video channels. Some are iffy, though.
Things don’t always go as planned. And you always have to be willing to follow the Holy Spirit. And you have to be willing to stop when it is time to stop.
Kevin T,
I empathize with the sense of futility—even of false promises—that your post of 18 Feb @ 4:17 pm conveys. Sometimes faith-destroying problems ARE met with minimization or with “fables-for-the-feebleminded” solutions from those whose own faith lacks enough depth to offer us solace. Still, hard as it may be to internalize, the faith that God is all-loving, all-knowing and omnipotent is the essential and radical [at the root] antidote to the fatal nihilism that destroys souls. I’m not dismissing your concerns; in fact, they afflict me, too.
Secondly, I subscribe to all the observations you made in your 19 Feb @ 10:28 am. Fixing those problems is absolutely prerequisite to the spiritual healing that you suggests w desperately need. Will they be addressed and remedied? I pray to God they will be. Chances are nothing will change, especially regarding the REC. Archbishop Gomez is a good man. But the problems with the REC were brought to his attention as soon as he was installed here. And they have gone unaddressed, though annually repeated to him.
Good man ? what kind of a “good man ” lets this go year after year ? some years ago , documented on this site the faithful tried to submit a petition to remove the mahony from his role in the REC they were rebuffed by security around this “good man ” who could not be bothered to meet with or consider the legitimate concerns peacefully and respectfully submitted to him , not the behavior of a good man or shepard , that we deserve .
Some people like chant and some people like “praise music.” The video was ok, but not up to serious production standards. Are we, however, to focus on the quality of the production or the call to be one with Christ? Because a person supports abortion doesn’t mean that she is a bad poet or that her good stuff should not be quoted. It is important for all of us (as for myself, mea culpa) to begin to separate actions and ideas rather than lump them together. If the REC was so bad for Catholicism, it would not be celebrating the 65th anniversary. Does it sometimes have speakers with whom we disagree? Obviously Yes. But, let’s pluck the bad apples out without throwing away the whole bushel full. Lumping everything together makes for poor discourse and poor thinking and judgment. Oops, I may have just done that?
Bob One writes: “[i]f the REC was so bad for Catholicism, it would not be celebrating the [sic] 65th anniversary”. A non sequitur of the first class. The Black Plague lasted longer than 65 years. Should we therefore conclude it was GOOD for humanity?
This year we are blessed that it is online. People can watch the videos and scrutinize them. They can catch errors and correct them.
Bob why are they and how long have the ” bad apples ” been there ? why should “bad apples” be tolerated and paid for by us the laity , would you give poor quality food and drink to your family and friends or would you give the best you could ?, one should be able to be confident of the catholicity of this conference, that the errors and offences have continued is a sign of the problems in the church and its loss of moral authority.
Bob One not only should the REC bushel be thrown out but the entire REC orchard should be reduced to ashes and the land salted.
Kevin T., I’m with you buddy. The Church is rapidly descending into paganism everywhere. Our cowardly bishops have fled the pasture, in hopes of cavorting with the wolves.
If you haven’t already, I’d suggesting reading “Infiltration” by Dr. Taylor Marshall. Explains much about where we went wrong and who was behind it.
Please be careful with recommending things like that. I have not read his book but he is one of the Youtube Catholics that I avoid for fear of being led astray.
His book is simply historical facts. Though some modernists have criticized his book, no one has disputed the facts therein.
Think for yourself.
Popes Leo XIII and his successor Pope St. Pius X both warned of impending doom for the Church from the forces of Modernism. Pope Pius XII had a vision in which he foresaw the Church in decline due to changes to her liturgy.
Our Lord Himself warned that in the end the Church would fall into apostacy, and that if He didn’t shorten the eschaton, no one would have the faith. Popes JPII and Pope Benedict (as Cdl. Ratzinger) publicly revealed that the Message of Fatima was about apostacy in the Church.
These are demonstrable facts, not conjecture. Wake up.
Please demonstrate your “facts.”. Cite a genuine, real source for these things that you are claiming.
Do you know what apostasy is?.
Fred Bennet, I did my research on the book. No. Avoid. Do not be led astray.
This is a convert. He is a former Episcopal priest.
He was not even Catholic during Pope St. John Paul II reign as Pope.
Those of us who have been Catholic for decades have already rejected this stuff.
He has gotten into some of the weird stuff from sedevacantism and the other schismatics. He has probably gotten it off the internet.
God bless him and lead him to Truth.
Be wary when anyone is trying to make a living from being Catholic. Be wary of lay people who write books about Catholicism.
Some are OK but there are real dangers here.
Anonymous…By someone who is faithful to the Church and her teachings? Why not have you show us what is contrary to the Church teachings in this man’s videos. And who is embracing apostasy?
You do understand that this is not an issue about Church teaching? Fr. James Martin is faithful to Church teaching but I avoid him because I do not want to be led astray.
You can lead others astray while staying faithful to Church teaching by many methods such as suggestion, innuendo, false reports, questioning Church leaders, gossip etc. Though these things are sins, you have to be very, very virtuous not to get caught up in some falsity. The devil knows how to tempt people.
I do not want to attack anyone and I do not intend to harm anyone’s reputation which is also a sin.
I was speaking for myself alone. I do not expose myself to stuff like that. I ran into similar stuff on the Internet about 15 years ago and got spun around by it and then when I did more research, found that it was from schismatic groups and was not true. So I avoid it now.
I disagree Father (?) James Martin is not faithful to the Church’s teachings. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing leading many astray in my view.. And please don’t compare someone who is trying to stay faithful to a Church which is mess.
Ronnie, please name one thing that Father Martin has said or done that is not faithful to Church teaching and please provide a quote and a source.
You also cast aspersions on a priest in good standing by adding a cynical question mark. That kind of cynicism undermines the faith.
YFC , look to martins own twitter account , his profane images of Our Lady of Guadalupe , where she is trampling on the angel , Our Lady of Czestochowa with the rainbow flag in place of her halo , the insults to Our Lord in the images from Douglas Blanchard.. All available with a google search and on his twitter account . These are insults to Christ and the BVM, he uses these and his position for his own agenda , not the glory of God or the salvation of souls.
Rick W, no I’m sorry, I’m not going to hunt down the images you say are on twitter somewhere. And by the way, most of the things you say he has insulted are not even part of Church teaching to begin with. You’ll have to do better than that.
YFC, no you have to do better , “hunt them down ” , “twitter somewhere” ? no martins own twitter account , our gracious hosts do not let us put up images or links, you asked for information you got it , your incuriosity speaks to your sincerity in your posts. That he has insulted the BVM in these images and that you don’t know that yes it is against church teachings to use images of her in this way ,that these insults come from a “priest in good standing ” and you cant do a search that would take less time then your post shows your the quality of your catholicity when it goes against your biases.
They come up easily with a google search. Just a note that it is not our Lady of Guadalupe treading on an angel. It is a portrait of the artist, Yolanda Lopez, dressed in clothing similar to Our Lady. She holds the snake. The angel has red, white and blue wings.
Ronnie I think the world has been full of people for centuries who have prophesied the end times. Some did it genuinely and some did it to make money.
I have seen a few of his videos. He is full of conspiracy theories and tries to link see these things all line up together. Except that they really don’t. But that’s what you do when you have to fill an hour every week on YourTube in order to get enough people to watch so you can make money.
It is unclear if he is an abject heretic or not, but he certainly doesn’t follow the shepherds of the Church.
Who would follow the shepherds of the Church who are leading people astray, maybe only, sad to say, not convinced of the mess we’re in. I have watched many of his videos and found nothing but a true account of what’s taking place in the Church, the mass confusion.
The Shepherds of the Church are not leading people astray. They are just not.
YFC, Anonymous & An Anon….Oh, no the Leftist are after me! Let’s start with the evidence on confused pro-homosexual activist Fr. James Martin:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/eight-extreme-things-fr.-james-martin-just-said-about-catholics-and
“The Shepherds of the Church are not leading people astray. They are just not.” You can’t be serious. No further comment is necessary.
And please give me a list of Dr. Taylor Marshall’s so-called conspiracy theories.
My guess is that he’s speaking the truth and “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie”….so therefore they attack me
When you say “shepherds of the Church” I assume you are speaking the Bishops.
Fr. James Martin is not a bishop.
I have always avoided his books, even before “Building a Bridge” out of a fear of being led astray.
I avoid Dr. Taylor Marshall for the same reason.
There are articles online and lots of Amazon reviews (start with the 1 star reviews) of his book Infiltration.
At your recommendation, I looked at the book and its reviews. When I saw a Chapter on LaSalette, I said no. There are real problems with some later additions to that apparition. I don’t know what he says about it. I just do not expose myself to this stuff.
At best, it is a distraction from what you are really supposed to be doing. It could be gossip which is a sin to listen to as well as speak.
Always remember, where words are many, sin is not lacking.
The four pillars are: What we believe, The sacraments, Moral living (10 Commandments +) and Prayer. I would add virtue and works of Mercy to that. Church history is so-so. Not necessary but can be interesting but can also cause some consternation. Reading Papal documents is good. Bible. Rosary, Chaplet of Mercy, good Prayerbook. Good Catholic website like Aleteia (though not infallible). Stay to the sources that are trustworthy. If someone is undermining your trust in the Pope, the bishops, the Church, get away from it.
God bless you and lead you on straight paths.
Anonymous 2/24 @4pm….Again please do not compare a dissident Priest (I never wrote that he was a Bishop) with a faithful Catholic. And God bless you and lead you on a straight, not confused path, because I think confused path is where you might be heading. No one is undermining my trust with this Pope and Bishops (some not all thank God) except maybe they are with the confusion they are causing in our Church.
I believe that Kevin T. is a thoughtful Catholic who is expressing his anguish here about the state of our Church leadership. He has every right to be dismayed. Our Church is in a state of flux. I’ve never witnessed anything like this in all my years, with errant bishops robbing us of our faith like thieves in the night. Catholics have had to deal with persecution through the centuries, but never, ever from inside. We are living through a new tyranny with “honeyed words but evil minds”.
Maybe you just weren’t aware of it and maybe you don’t know much about Church history and the stories of the saints?
@ Anonymous, whichever one you are — don’t condescend.
It wasn’t condescending. Maybe you really just don’t know. I don’t want to list stuff because if you don’t know or someone else reading it doesn’t know, it can be a shock and can cause a crisis of faith..
It used to be that people loved to find fault with the Church and its history and the Apostles and the Saints because they it made them feel better about themselves.
There is this new thing that has come up since the turn of the century where the Church must be perfect or people come unglued.
Most people aren’t being robbed of their faith. Some are throwing it away, like always.
Drama, drama, drama. CCD is a website that likes to print stories that will cause its readership to become upset. There are others.
It is the way of the Internet.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8.
God bless all of you. Be at Peace. You have the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, my anguish is heavy. I never thought I’d live in times like this. I never thought the Church would herself be a source of confusion and exasperation. Thank you.
Kevin , do not always agree with you but the anguish is shared , your not alone , be strong and keep being that voice in the wilderness.
Silent Observer “honeyed words but evil minds”. brevity is the soul of wit , you have that in abundance , I am stealing that line , good post .
Both Silent O and Kevin T are mistaken in their analysis. The people who are confused are those who resist the leadership of the ministers of the Church, who would not be led by their shepherds (the Holy Father and the bishops), who think there is a “genuine” Church and a fake one, who dissent from the magisterial teachings of the Church, who insist in their own interpretation of Tradition and Scripture, whose theology and ecclesiology have remained static and ossified. Those who do not believe that the Church’s knowledge of God deepens at significant points in the history of the Church remain stuck in the past that is unequipped with solving issues and problems of the present. Example? Their solution to every major human problem is to get rid of the Mass of Paul VI and make the TLM the “ordinary” form, and restore tradition. Tradition is all well and good, but that response is not only flat-footed but tone-deaf.
@ jon – I have loved my Church for well over 70 years, and no one has ever accused me of dissenting from the magisterial teachings of the Church. Your dissection of my Catholicity is a shibboleth meant to divide. You imply that while you know that you are a real Catholic, you’re just not so sure about the rest of us. If being static and ossified means I will challenge any clergy member who tries to minimize the slaughter of innocents, then I will gladly wear that mantle. Many venerable saints were not unquestioningly docile either. St. Mary MacKillop, founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart in Australia, was once excommunicated for several months for insubordination. Count me as a fan of hers.
SO, OK. You do know that there has been persecution from the inside for centuries.
beloved jon when the sheperads fail us as in the LA REC , we will not be silent or obsequious, flat footed describes your posts for the most part .
What the?