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Sept

Blessings to All:

As I was doing my morning walk, I was reflecting upon a part of the Gospel, where

we are called to imitate Jesus. The bible tells us that Jesus is the Light of the World

and we are to be like Him in all things.

We believe as Christians, that the Sprit of

Jesus lives in us. And that we are to

project His Light Into a World of

Darkness so that our examples will touch

others. This will show others, we are

indeed followers of the True Light and

True God. This is a mystery but is true.

We carry the Light of Jesus within us and

others need to see that Light. The more we improve in holiness the brighter the

Light of Jesus will shine through us and touch others. The less holy we are, our

light will shine dimly upon others we meet.

In 2Corinthians 13:5, St Paul says “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?”

He goes on to tell us how we can bring His Light to others in 2Corinthians 13:11,

“Finally, brothers, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one

another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

St Paul wants his readers to ‘mend their ways’. To acknowledge our sins and live a

life that reflects the fact that Jesus lives within us.

Therefore, we should strive to avoid situations that dim our Light. St Paul tells us

what we should avoid and what we should do. I read an article by Joe Heschmeyer

that I am putting in this newsletter. It is well written and has some depth to it. I

Reflections Catholic Family Newsletter

April 2019

Preparing For Spiritual Battle

No Shortcuts to Heaven

Trump Receives Fatima Statue

Melania Trump Demands Spiritual Cleansing

of WH

Volume 44

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recommend it to you. Joe was previously a litigator in Washington D.C. and then a

seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kansas City. He now works as an instructor at

Holy Family School of Faith. He blogs at Shameless Popery, and alongside co-host

Chloe Langr, has a weekly podcast called The Catholic Podcast.

PREPARING FOR BATTLE: TIPS FROM ST. PAUL ON

EVANGELIZATION BY JOE HESCHMEYER

1First, St. Paul reminds us to rely upon God rather than ourselves: “Be

strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” This is maybe the

hardest part of apologetics. We want to be the heroes, we want to be right, and we

want to do it all on the strength of our own brilliance. But this is a huge mistake,

and the surest route to failure. Why? Paul gets there in his second point.

Second, he reminds us who we’re really up against. Our enemy is Satan and

his henchmen. And Paul also reminds us of Satan’s “wiles,” and the “spiritual hosts

of wickedness.” The devil’s smarter than you are, and more powerful. If you are

relying upon your own strength, you will lose.

But this is also a good reminder that “we are not contending against flesh and

blood,” even when it feels like we are. In the heat of the moment, when someone

is attacking us, or attacking our mother Mary, or attacking Jesus, or attacking the

Church, our natural response is to get defensive and to think of that person as our

1 https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/preparing-for-battle-7-tips-from-st-paul-on-evangelization/5926/

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enemy. But St. Paul tells us no, they’re not our enemy, Satan and the forces of evil

are.

Third, St. Paul tells us to wear the whole “armor of God,” beginning with

“girding our loins with truth.” Let’s say that the other person you’re speaking

to raises a question, and you just don’t know the answer. What’s the temptation?

To make something up or to guess. Why? Because it saves face, or because we

buy into the lie that if we don’t make something up, we’ll lose. Paul is warning

us: don’t do that. Don’t rely upon half-truths or lies just because they might help

you “win the argument”; don’t make stuff up to avoid looking ignorant or wrong;

don’t sacrifice truth for the sake of a “win.” Why? Because Satan “is a liar and the

father of lies” (John 8:44), while God is “the God of truth” (Isaiah 65:16). Lying is

losing.

Fourth, St. Paul tells us to wear the “breastplate of righteousness.” In

other words, the most effective armor that you have in this fight is holiness. You

can know all the proofs for God’s existence, you can be able to explain the

arguments about Jesus’ empty tomb or his establishment of the Church, but if

you’re not living like a saint, it’s a waste of breath.

On the other hand, Paul also speaks of “the weapons of righteousness for the right

hand and for the left” (2 Cor. 6:7). In other words, we should be “armed” with

holiness. Even if you’re not great at apologetics, even if you can never remember

chapter and verse in the heat of the moment, even if you’re the worst debater in

the world, you can still be an effective evangelist simply by being loving and openly

sharing “the hope that is in you.”

Fifth, St. Paul tells us to shod our feet “with the equipment of the gospel

of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench

all the flaming darts of the evil one.” We’ve just established that these

encounters, as innocuous and meaningless as they may seem, are points of

spiritual combat, and combat against a foe who’s stronger and smarter than you.

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In the face of this, especially if it doesn’t seem to be going well, it’s important to

cling to the peace that only Christ can give. As he said at the Last Supper, knowing

that the Apostles were about to undergo a serious spiritual trial, “Let not your

hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). And a short

while later: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world

gives, do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid”

(John 14:29). The devil can offer you complacency, but not true peace. And so,

what does he want to have happen in these encounters? For you to lose your

peace, and to stop trusting that God is more powerful than Satan.

Sixth, St. Paul reminds us to be armed with the “the helmet of salvation,

and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” In other words, lean

on God and learn Scripture. It’s a great tool. When the devil tried to tempt Jesus in

the desert, Jesus responded by quoting Scripture (Mt. 4:1-11). The devil then tried

to get Jesus to jump off the Temple by selectively quoting Psalm 91: “He will give

his angels charge of you,” and “on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike

your foot against a stone.” Jesus corrected him, still using Scripture.

This is a lesson for us. One of the most common reasons I hear Catholics say that

they can’t evangelize is that they don’t know Scripture well enough. Well, good,

you recognize the problem! Your lack of knowledge of Scripture is impeding your

ability to live the Christian life fully and keeping you from bringing other people to

Jesus. What are you going to do about it?

And it’s not just about knowing chapter and verse. It’s about knowing the Gospel,

and coming to know Jesus intimately through prayerfully devouring Scripture. St.

Jerome puts it this way: “If, as Paul says, ‘Christ is the power of God and the

wisdom of God,’ and if the man who does not know Scripture does not

know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is

ignorance of Christ.”

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Finally, you’ll notice that I said prayerfully devouring Scripture. That’s

because St. Paul calls upon us to “pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and

supplication.” In these moments of evangelization, when someone is asking or

challenging, you need “air support.” This is for two reasons. First, because you’re

not equipped to do it well enough on your own. The devil is a predator, and what

do predators do? They try to get you away from the herd. They want you alone, so

you’re defenseless. So, when the devil tells you, “You’ve got this, don’t worry

about praying!” he’s saying, “Come over here, without God.”

But even more than that, it’s because faith is a gift from God. A friend of mine was

a fervent and brilliant anti-Catholic (he went on to clerk for a Supreme Court

justice and is now a lawyer working for the White House). As a young man at

Hillsdale College, he would argue his Catholic classmates out of the Church.

Eventually, enough of the Catholics around him started praying for him that he

underwent an incredible spiritual transformation and he became Catholic. There

wasn’t some particular argument that he encountered that he’d never heard of

before. Instead, as he put it, it was like the scales just dropped from his eyes one

day, and all of his resistance to Catholicism was gone. Don’t under estimate the

power of prayer.

No matter how good your arguments are, you

cannot give someone faith. The most you can do

is learn to remove some of the intellectual barriers

(and, by holiness of life, remove some of the

nonintellectual barriers). The only one who can

give someone faith is God, and so we need to be

praying for people by name. We might also need to

join this with fasting for them, because that’s a

powerful spiritual combination (Mark 9:20). I would

encourage you right now to take a moment to let

you pause and ask God if there’s anyone you need to be praying for in this way.

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Billy Graham Preaches Jesus

2Billy Graham gave a speech in Tacoma, Washington in 1983

emphasizing our need to renounce sin and turn to God. He was a

hard worker in God’s vineyard and his talk that evening has some

jewels for us to take away.

No Shortcuts To Heaven

By: Billy Graham

There are no shortcuts to heaven, no bargain rates. When I went to college, in Wheaton, Ill.,

I heard about a place in Chicago where, if you

were the first one to arrive on Monday

morning, you could get a bargain. So, I was

the first one there on Monday, and I bought a

suit for $5. I was proud of that suit. I wore it

on Saturday afternoon to a football game, and

it rained. I’ll let your imagination tell you the

rest. I thought I had a bargain, but I was

mistaken.

The Bible teaches that it costs something to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. First,

we need to realize the high price of sin. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23, NIV). That is a high price to pay for sin-physical death, spiritual

death, eternal death. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God” (Romans 3:23, NIV). The Bible also says that “a man reaps what he sows”

(Galatians 6:7, NIV). Many of you are reaping what you have sown. You may be

religious; you may go to church. But deep down in your heart there is that guilt

because you know that you are not right with God and that your sins are not

forgiven. You haven’t changed your way of living.

Job said, “As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap

it” (Job 4:8, NIV). When we sow sin, we will reap the results of it. Someday your

sin will catch up with you. No one will ever get by with a single sin. You may get by

with it for a month, or a year, or two or three or five years, or even for 10 years.

But one day you are going to reap what you have been sowing.

2 https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/may-2005/no-shortcuts-to-heaven/

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“They will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes,”

says Proverbs 1:31 (NIV).

Proverbs also says, “The evil deeds of a wicked man

ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast”

(Proverbs 5:22, NIV). Think of it: Cords of sin hold

you in some of your habits that you know to be wrong

and sinful. It may be a drug habit; it may be an

alcohol habit; it may be a sex habit; it may be

something else. Too many people think that they can

go out and sow their wild oats all week and then head

for church on Sunday, and everything is OK.

Everything is not OK. You may have been baptized

and confirmed and you may go to church. But Sunday

is just one day, and the rest of your week–your business life, your home life–is

something else.

You must not just become a Christian; you must also be a Christian all the time, 24

hours a day. You should bear the fruit of the Spirit, which the Holy Spirit

supernaturally produces in you when you come to know Christ.

Is it worth it? The Bible says, “The world and its desires pass away, but the man

who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17, NIV). Are you in the will of

God?

Jesus Christ paid a high price for your sins. He

died on the cross for your sins. He suffered death and hell and judgment for you in your

place. He rose again for you.

You can come to God, and He will forgive your

sins and give you the power–power that you

have never known before–to resist temptation.

But you need to repent of your sin. Have you

renounced your sin? That is what it means to

repent. It means to say to God, “I have sinned, but I’m willing to renounce my sins

and change my way of living.”

The Bible talks about “all that is in the world” as being “the lust of the flesh, the

lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16, NKJV). One meaning of the

word “lust” is selfish desire.

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Such worldly desire may be in the physical realm, which is “the lust of the flesh.” It

could be the wrong use of sex. It could be gluttony, overdrinking or overeating. It

could be self-indulgences of various sorts.

It may be in the realm of the imagination, “the lust of the eyes.” Job said, “I made

a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1, NIV).

It may be in the realm of ambition, the pride of life. In other words, wanting that

job, that honor, that award–so badly that you would sell your soul for it. It is

wanting something so badly that you will do anything to get it. That is one of the

tricks of the devil. Is it worth paying the price? No! It is too high a price to pay.

Not only is there the high price of sin, but there is also the high price of salvation.

It cost God His Son. “It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed … but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19,

NIV).

Can you imagine how God felt and how the angels felt

when they saw the Son of God taken outside Jerusalem

and beaten with long leather thongs? When they saw the

crown of thorns placed on His brow? When they saw His

blood dripping from head to toe? He had to carry a heavy

wooden cross until He stumbled and fell, and a man from

Africa helped Him to carry it to Golgotha. Nails were put

into His hands and feet. He was jolted up between heaven

and earth, and there He hung. The heart of God was

broken. Perhaps the angels in heaven pulled their swords,

ready to come and rescue Him.

But God’s Son said, “No, I love them too much.” He

was looking forward to this generation and to other

generations. He said, “I am dying for their

salvation. I want to reconcile them to me. I want to

save them; I want to forgive them. And this is the

only way.”

Finally, there is the high price of commitment. You,

too, must pay a high price, a high cost. Jesus must

become first in your life as your Lord and your

Master and your Savior. Jesus never offered a bargain. He said, “If anyone would

come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”

(Matthew 16:24, NIV).

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What does that mean? It may cost you a great deal when you come to Christ. For

some of you, it will cost you friends. They won’t want a person around them who

lives a clean life and talks about God and reads the Bible and prays. It becomes

embarrassing to them.

It may mean misunderstanding. Jesus told us that His coming divides families.

Some will say yes, and some will say no.

C.T. Studd, the famous English cricketer and member of the

Cambridge Eleven cricket team, gave away his vast wealth and

became a missionary. His slogan was, “If Jesus Christ be God and

died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for

Him.” He lost himself for Christ.

In 1912 William Borden, a graduate of Yale

University, left one of America’s greatest family

fortunes to be a missionary to China. He got as far

as Egypt and died of cerebral meningitis. But before

he died–and he was only in his 20s–he said that he

had “no reserve, no retreat, no regrets.”

Then there was Jim Elliot, who became a missionary to the Aucas

in South America. He was killed, along with four others. Before he

died, he had written this: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot

keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

It may cost you something to come to Christ. It may cost you

time and effort. You may have to get up earlier in the morning to read your Bible, and that may be hard for some of you. It may mean that you will

have to witness to a neighbor. You may feel embarrassed or shy about it. It may

mean that you will have to treat your wife or your husband differently. It may

mean a whole new relationship with your family. God may speak to you in a

hundred different ways.

Are you willing to pay that price in order to have God’s joy and God’s peace and

God’s forgiveness?

Then I am going to ask you to make that commitment–a hard commitment. There

are no shortcuts to heaven.

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Our Lady of Fatima is at the White House :) • Posted by Dawn Marie on January 22, 2019 at 5:25pm in Sample Title • View Discussions

When Fr. Andrew Mahana-Maronite -exorcised the White House, He took a statue of our Lady of Fatima and President Trump asked the priest if he could keep it when he first moved in. Taken from Fr. RichardHeilmans timeline.

At a time when raw evil is consuming the world, I have no doubt that Donald

Trump's efforts to keep God in the picture is the main reason his enemies hate him

so. Of course, he's not Catholic but his innate desire to use his office to remind the

world about God certainly is Christian. He is Pro-Life while the enemies of God are

Pro-Choice. Life vs. Death. Support him by prayer. Whether you are a Democrat or

Republican does not matter.

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Pastor Begley: Melania Trump Demanded Spiritual Cleansing of WH, Removal of

Pagan, Demonic Idols

By Michael W. Chapman | February 8, 2018 | 1:04 PM EST

While commenting on President Donald Trump's very public support for Christianity, as well as the frequent Bible studies and prayer

gatherings held at the White House, evangelical Pastor Paul Begley said first lady Melania Trump demanded that the White House be spiritually cleansed and that pagan, demonic items and artifacts from the Obama and Clinton years be removed.

Melania Trump reportedly said, "I’m not going to go into that White House unless it has been completely

exorcised," according to Pastor Begley. One thing was left, a cross on the wall. "They cleansed the White House," he said. "They had people in there anointing it with oil and praying everywhere.”

Pastor Begley made his remarks during the Feb. 2 edition of Weekend Vigilante, hosted by Sheila Zilinsky.

Jesus Will Win The Battle With Evil.

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Babies Are Little People and God Loves Them

From Conception to Birth

Pray For An End to Abortion

St. Paul Ministry, Cypress, TX

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