What is a good way for a family to pray together? Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, says, “Pray the Rosary daily.” The rosary is a “clock” that helps us take time to meditate on the principal mysteries of our salvation. The Rosary helps us take time to receive the many graces God wants to pour into our hearts for the sanctification of our lives and our perfection in Charity. What follows is an excerpt from the journal of a Benedictine monk, from a recently published book called, In Sinu Jesu. This Latin title refers to the Last Supper where, John, the beloved disciple, lays his head “on the bosom of Jesus.” The words that follow are spoken to the priest (and to us) in the voice of Jesus.
There is no problem or difficulty that cannot be solved or resolved by faithful persevering recourse to My Mother’s most holy Rosary. The Rosary is my Mother’s gift to the poor and to the simple, to the little ones who alone are capable of hearing the Gospel in all its purity and of responding to it with a generous heart. It is to such as these – the child-like and the weak, the poor and the trusting – that the Rosary is given. It is to such as these that the Rosary belongs.
There is no suffering that cannot be borne peacefully, so long as a soul is praying the Rosary. Through the Rosary, all the grace and power of My mysteries passes through My Mother’s Immaculate Heart into the hearts of the little ones who invoke her, repeating the angel’s “Ave” over and over again. There are illnesses that can be cured through the Rosary. There are clouds of darkness and confusion that only the Rosary can disperse, and this because it is My Mother’s favorite prayer, a prayer that originated in the heights of heaven and was carried to earth by My Archangel, a prayer echoed and amplified in the Church through the ages, a prayer loved by all my saints, a prayer of disarming power and of immense depth. … Listen, then, to My Mother’s plea in so many places. Listen to her. Take her plea to heart, pray her Rosary and, for you as for her, My Father will do wondrous things.
 
Rosary Blessings, Fr. John 

In June of 1979, (now Saint) Pope John Paul II returned to Poland to retrieve a manuscript he had been working on since 1974. In September of 1979 he began a series of 129 Wednesday Audiences that would share the contents of this manuscript with the world. His original title for the manuscript was, Male and Female He Created Them (Gen.1:27). An alternate title given to the work by its author is Human Love in the Divine Plan. The work has now been published in English with the title, Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body.
 
In July of 1968, (now Saint) Pope Paul VI published, Humanae Vitae – On the Regulation of Human Births. In the face of the new technology of a hormonal birth-control pill (approved by the FDA in 1960), and mounting pressure from many persons both within and outside the Church, this Papal Encyclical set forth in clear terms that it is intrinsically evil to deliberately sterilize the marriage act. The dissent from this teaching by some bishops and many theologians in most of Europe, Canada and the U.S. was great. As a consequence, present day surveys show that 80 to 90 percent of “Western” Catholics do not follow this teaching of the Church.
 
Humanae Vitae inspired Cardinal Karol Wotyla to use his philosophical and theological gifts to provide a total vision of the human person. It is reported that, over a four-year period, he wrote the entire manuscript, now called, Theology of the Body, in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. George Weigel, author of a three-volume biography of St. John Paul II, describes TOB as the “antidote to the porno- revolution and the culture of death.” George Weigel predicts that TOB is like a time-bomb ready to go off during the Twenty-First Century.
I thank God that in St. Joachim Parish the time-bomb of Truth and Love in TOB has been going off for years now in our Marriage Preparation Ministry and our Youth Ministry. We are grateful to all who help with these important ministries.
 
Blessings, Fr. John 
 

By the time you are reading this, a day “that will go down in infamy,” January 22, 1973, will have anniversaried for the 46th time. On that day seven supreme court justices lifted the protection of the law from human life in the womb in our country. Sixty million surgical abortions later, the majority of voters are still electing political leaders who value a woman’s “right to choose” a baby’s death more than the inalienable right to life of a child in the womb. I repeat, “A Moral Wrong Cannot Be A Civil Right!”
Prayer is powerful. Prayer to God through Mary, who carried Jesus in her womb, is even more powerful. It is more important than ever to pray and fast for an end to abortion in our nation and in the world. May God’s love and truth then animate our thoughts, our words, our actions and our votes as we work tirelessly for life, liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all.
On Saturday, January 26, our parish sent nine bus loads of witnesses to march in the West Coast Walk For Life in San Francisco. What good did it do? Here is some wisdom from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, “People sometimes ask me if we can be optimistic, those of us who are religious believers, about the future of our country. My answer is always the same. Optimism and pessimism are equally dangerous for the believer because both God and the devil are full of surprises. But the virtue of hope is another matter. We have every reason to hope. Scripture tells us that we must live in hope and hope is a very different creature from optimism. Hope is the grace to trust that God is who He claims to be, and that in serving Him, we do something fertile and precious for the renewal of the world. Our lives matter not because of who we are. They matter because of who God is. His mercy, his Justice, his love – these are the things that move the galaxies and reach into the womb to touch the unborn child with the grandeur of being human. And we become more truly human ourselves by seeing the humanity in the poor, the weak, the elderly and the unborn child – and then fighting for it.”
 
Pro-Life Blessings, Fr. John 
 

Para el momento en que estes leyendo esto, un día “que pasará en la infamia”, el 22 de Enero del 1973, se habrá cumplido el 46ª aniversario. Ese día, siete jueces de la corte suprema levantaron la protección de la ley de la vida humana en el útero de nuestro país. Sesenta millones de abortos quirúrgicos más tarde, la mayoría de los votantes siguen eligiendo líderes políticos que valoran más el “derecho a elegir” de una mujer, la muerte de un bebe  más que el derecho inalienable a la vida de un niño en el útero. Repito, “¡Un error moral no puede ser un derecho civil!”
La oración es poderosa. La oración a Dios a través de María, quien llevó a Jesús en su vientre, es aún más poderosa. Hoy es más importante que nunca orar y ayunar para poner fin al aborto en nuestra nación y en el mundo. Que el amor y la verdad de Dios animen nuestros pensamientos, nuestras palabras, nuestras acciones y nuestros votos mientras trabajamos incansablemente por la vida, la libertad y la justicia, no solo para algunos, sino para todos.
El Sábado, 26 de Enero, nuestra parroquia envió nueve autobuses llenos de testigos para marchar en la Caminata por la Vida de la Costa Oeste en San Francisco. ¿Qué bien hizo? Aquí hay algo de la sabiduría del Arzobispo Charles Chaput de Filadelfia: “La gente a veces me pregunta si podemos ser optimistas, aquellos de nosotros que somos creyentes religiosos, sobre el futuro de nuestro país. Mi respuesta es siempre la misma. El optimismo y el pesimismo son igualmente peligrosos para el creyente porque tanto Dios como el diablo están llenos de sorpresas. Pero la virtud de la esperanza es otro asunto. Tenemos todas las razones para la esperanza. La Escritura nos dice que debemos vivir con esperanza y que la esperanza es una criatura muy diferente del optimismo. La esperanza es la gracia de confiar en que Dios es quien dice ser, y que al servirlo, hacemos algo fértil y precioso para la renovación del mundo. Nuestras vidas importan no por quienes somos. Importan por quien es Dios. Su misericordia, su justicia, su amor: estas son las cosas que mueven las galaxias y llegan al útero para tocar al niño por nacer con la grandeza de ser humano. Y nosotros mismos nos volvemos más humanos al ver a la humanidad en los pobres, los débiles, los ancianos y el niño por nacer - y luego luchar por ella.”
 
Bendiciones a favor de la vida, Fr. John 
 

“Mary experienced the most powerful erotic desires of any woman who ever walked on our planet.” Christopher West used this statement to grab my attention in his keynote address at the 50th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae* Conference, Ontario, CA, July 28, 2018. He went on to say that, “We tend to associate “Erotic love” with pornography. Whereas, Eros is given to us by God to launch us toward the stars and beyond. Pope Benedict XVI says that Eros is our desire for God; a desire for every infinite of Truth, Goodness, Love and Beauty. Original sin inverted the rocket engines of Eros. They are now aimed at finite pleasures. Christ came into the world, not to condemn those with inverted rocket engines, but to re-direct those rocket engines. Redemption begins with Eros. Jesus’ first miracle/sign, at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, is meant to show us that he came to restore Agape (Divine Love) to Eros (the Love of Need and Desire). Jesus came to help us become intoxicated with God’s Wine of Agape/Eros.”
Our secular culture has lost touch with the God-given meaning of sexuality, marriage and gender. St. John Paul II referred to our secular culture as a “culture of death.” “God did not create death, and He takes no pleasure in the death of the living. …Death entered our world through the envy of the devil.” (Wisdom 1:13; 2:24). What was the devil envious of? Here is Christopher West’s train of thought in the wake of that question.
“Satan hates the Woman and her ability to bear offspring. We are the strange bridge between the angels and the animals. In the Incarnation, God would take on the lowliness of flesh and raise it higher than the angels. What do we have that angels do not have? Bodies! What can we do that angels cannot do? Procreate!, that is, participate in the power of creation. More stunning than the creation of the Milky Way Galaxy or the Himalayan Mountain Range is the procreation of a human baby. Satan hates our bodies. And Satan wants us to hate our bodies too.
Governments are asking us to identify everybody without reference to any body. St. John Paul II revived the Church’s incarnational – sacramental view of the Body in his teaching called “Theology of the Body.” (more next week).
*Humanae Vitae is the 1968 Encyclical Letter of St. Pope Paul VI, subtitled, “On the Regulation of Human Births.”  
 
Blessings, Fr. John 

“Mary experimentó los deseos eróticos más poderosos que cualquier mujer que haya caminado en nuestro planeta.” Christopher West usó esta declaración para captar mi atención en su discurso de apertura en el 50 aniversario de la Conferencia Humanae Vitae *, Ontario, CA, 28 de Julio del 2018. Continuó diciendo que “Tendemos a asociar el “amor erótico” con la pornografía. Considerando que, Eros nos es dado por Dios para lanzarnos hacia las estrellas y más allá. El Papa Benedicto XVI dice que Eros es nuestro deseo por Dios; un deseo por cada infinito de Verdad, Bondad, Amor y Belleza. El pecado original invirtió los motores de cohetes de Eros. Ahora están dirigidos a los placeres finitos. Cristo vino al mundo, no para condenar a aquellos con motores de cohetes invertidos, sino para redirigir esos motores de cohetes. La redención comienza con Eros. El primer milagro / signo de Jesús, en una boda en Caná de Galilea, tiene el propósito de mostrarnos que vino a restaurar Ágape (Amor Divino) a Eros (el Amor de la Necesidad y el Deseo). Jesús vino para ayudarnos a intoxicarnos con el Vino de Ágape / Eros de Dios ".
Nuestra cultura secular ha perdido contacto con el significado dado por Dios de sexualidad, matrimonio y género. San Juan Pablo II se refirió a nuestra cultura secular como una “cultura de la muerte”. “Porque Dios no hizo la muerte, y no le gusta que se pierdan los vivos. … La envidia del diablo introdujo la muerte en el mundo.” (Sabiduría 1:13; 2:24). ¿De qué le tenía envidia el diablo? Aquí está la línea de pensamiento de Christopher West después de esa pregunta.
“Satanás odia a la Mujer y su capacidad de tener descendencia. Somos el puente extraño entre los ángeles y los animales. En la Encarnación, Dios tomaría la humildad de la carne y la elevaría más alto que los ángeles. ¿Qué tenemos que no tengan los ángeles? ¡Cuerpos! ¿Qué podemos hacer que los ángeles no puedan hacer? ¡Procrear!, es decir, participar en el poder de la creación. Más sorprendente que la creación de la Vía Láctea o la Cordillera del Himalaya es la procreación de un bebé humano. Satanás odia nuestros cuerpos. Y Satanás quiere que nosotros también odiemos nuestros cuerpos.”
Los gobiernos nos piden que identifiquemos a todos sin hacer referencia a ningún cuerpo. San Juan Pablo II revivió la visión encarnacional - sacramental del Cuerpo en su enseñanza llamada “Teología del Cuerpo”. (más la próxima semana).
*Humanae Vitae es la Carta Encíclica de San Papa Pablo VI de 1968, subtitulada "Sobre la Regulación de los Nacimientos Humanos".

Bendiciones, Fr. John  

To Life! To Truth! To Beauty! To Goodness! To Mercy! To Repentance! To Healing! To Reconciliation! To The Ultimate and Absolute of Holy Communion with the Persons of the Trinity and with One Another! And back to Life - To Eternal Life! Let 2019 Be the Year!
To arms! We are at war with death, the father of lies, the prince of darkness, the accuser, the murderer; with sin: hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, fear, despair, pride, misdirected anger, lust, envy, self-indulgence, greed, and spiritual-laziness.
Take heart! God so loves the world that He gives us Himself by giving us His only Son! Jesus gives us Himself totally! He has crushed the head of our enemy, the devil, and broken his power over us. He offers us His Friendship and His Victory and invites us to live on His Winning Team, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church! God offers us powerful offensive weapons against “the world, the flesh and the devil:” the Sacraments, the Sign of the Cross, “No in the Name of Jesus!,” the Our Father, the Hail Mary, twenty meditations on the Mysteries of our Salvation - the Rosary, the St. Michael the Archangel Prayer, and more.
In this month of January, as we approach the tragic date when the protection of our civil law was lifted from human life in the womb, it is more important than ever to pray for an end to abortion, in our country and in the world.
Prayer is powerful. And prayer to God through the Blessed Virgin Mary is even more powerful. Let us join together in 2019 to pray two hundred million “Memorares,” for the protection of human life, from the moment of conception to a natural death. (a call to arms by Fr. Rocky on Relevant Radio, 1250 AM).
Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother. To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me, Amen.
 
Baptismal Blessings, Fr. John 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! “Remain in my love. … I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” (John 15: 10-11). Here is a commentary on this joy by Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI. “Where does joy come from? How is it to be explained? Certainly, there are many factors at work here. But in my view, the crucial one is this certainty, based on faith: I am wanted; I have a task in history; I am accepted; I am loved.