Jesus encouraged his disciples to struggle against sins. We are also his disciples. We also struggle against sins.

Saints like Maximilian Kolbe taught that repeated falls can be occasions for deeper humility and dependence on grace—not despair.

The Church sees the struggle with sin as a path to holiness, not a sign of failure. As Augustine said, “God would not allow evil if He were not powerful enough to bring a greater good from it.”

The Church offers Confession and the Eucharist as means of grace to strengthen the soul against sin.

Prayer, fasting, and cultivating virtues like chastity, humility, and temperance are essential tools in this struggle.

I encourage every reader of this post, Catholic and non-Catholic to take courage from the holy scriptures and from the example of the saints and the teaching of the Church in their struggle against sins.

Yesterday the Lord led me to write a meme on the subject of “Internet Trolls.” And as I read this passage of Scripture this morning, that is what immediately came to mind. For these internet trolls work like messengers of Satan, working to try to trick us into some kind of response that would not be of God, that would not be God’s will and purpose for our lives. For they instigate (incite, goad, provoke) a particular negative response, hoping to trip us up, just like the Pharisees did to Jesus, which is how Satan works.

But we have to not take the bait. And with internet trolls, the best thing we can do is to ignore them, and to not take the bait, and to not get into useless and meaningless debates with them, which are meant to tear us down, to distract us, to get us upset, and to tempt us to sin against God. So we need to pray for spiritual discernment so that we don’t let Satan get us to the point of frustration or anger or fear. We need to discern if a response is legitimate or if it is intended to stir us up emotionally to commit sin.

So, if a responder comes at me, “all guns blaring,” attacking me personally, when this “person” does not know me, making up stuff about me that is not true, accusing me falsely of what I did not do or say, I need to stop and pray, and seek the counsel of God as to whether or not I should give any response at all, and if so, what that biblical response should be, spoken in love, and never in hate. For when Satan came at Jesus, to tempt him, Jesus always responded with “It is written..” (in the Scriptures).

But if we quote Scripture to some of these internet trolls, they may just attack us, or they may also quote Scriptures, but out of context, and twisted to their advantage, or which have nothing at all to do with the topic of the writing to which they are responding. For their objective is to confuse, to distract, to upset, to attack, to contend with, to disrupt, to anger, and to create chaos and discord, to disrupt meaningful conversations, and to try to incite emotional distress and fear or anger in their intended target.

If an internet site on which we post has moderators, and a way to report a responder who is obviously being vicious, and who is trying to incite fear or a response so that they can continue in their attacks, and/or because what the responder is doing clearly goes against the site’s rules of decency and respect for other humans, then it is good if we can report such individuals to the moderators, and if we have moderators who will take action, and if they will not permit such vicious and personal attacks, one person to another.

And this is not saying that we all have to agree with everyone on everything in order to “make peace.” But if we disagree, we should do so respectfully, calmly, trusting the Lord to give us the right words to say, which will be beneficial to others who are watching, reading, or listening in on the conversations. We, as Christians, should not allow ourselves to get into heated debates or arguments which produce nothing good, and we should not lower ourselves to name calling and to personally attacking others.

Now, Jesus did speak the truth in love, at times, to his opponents, so this is certainly not saying that we cannot speak truth in response to lies, but it should be the truth, and not a heated and emotional response just because someone disagreed with us on any given subject. But we also need to learn when to just walk away from a discussion, because it is going nowhere good. I see so many heated discussions among Christians that can go back and forth indefinitely, but that end up producing nothing of value to anyone.

Satan’s goal is to get us to fail. And he will attack us in our weaknesses, for sure, on days when we are more emotional or tired or already distressed over a particular situation. He will go at us at our weakest points in order to try to bring us down and to get us to fail. So we need the wisdom of God in these situations spoken of here, so that we don’t get caught in the devil’s traps and end up ruining our testimonies for Jesus Christ. And we need the wisdom of God as to when to just walk away and to not get engaged.

So we need to test the spirits: [Matthew 7:15-23; Matthew 24:11-14; John 10:1-15; Romans 16:17-19; 2 Corinthians 11:3,13-15; Ephesians 4:11-16; Philippians 3:2; 2 Peter 2:1-22; 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 1 Timothy 6:3-10; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 1 John 4:1-6; Jude 1:1-25]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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The Devil’s Schemes
An Original Work / July 12, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Calvinism paints a picture of a God who preplanned the salvation of each individual, that the number that was to be saved was fixed before creation, and that the will or actions of man play no part in man's eternal destiny. As stated in The Westminster Confession of Faith:

The idea (above) of God fixing destinies was not believed for the first 400 years of recorded Christian history. Those who came directly after the Apostles believed our actions determine if we are saved. The Earliest Church Leaders believed in Free Will theology. The idea that we work in Synergy with God, that our actions, either good or evil, determine if we are saved. Making statements like:

So what am I posting today? Well, I was doing my daily Bible reading, and came across the following which supports the Free Will, argument.

Firstly, it shows that God's plan is not fixed, that when He decrees a thing, He does change His mind, based upon man's actions. If everything was predestined, then He would "know all things", and would never have made the statement.

Secondly, it shows there is an action of man's that brings God's honor, or displeasure.


and

Dear friends,

Did you know that Malechi 4 is fullfilled? He would send healing under His wings and restore the heart of the children (present day Christians) to the hearts of the fathers (Christians in the Book of Acts). We witnessed millions of healings through the ministry of Oral Roberts and William Branham.

I got healed myself too from psychosises. I read about the healings and prayed to the Lord Jesus and am healed. Even my wife and son who got kidnapped in Peru by the corrupt government and churches will reunite with me soon, by prayer and believing the Word of this hour!

Kind regards.

Dominique

So often the major media portrays these people as "protestors" or the clashes as "mostly peaceful protests." Judge for yourself.

A Catholic flight attendant who says United Airlines fired him after he endorsed Catholic teachings on marriage and gender identity while talking with a co-worker can proceed with his lawsuit against his union for not standing up for him, a federal judge has ruled.

The flight attendant, Ruben Sanchez, of Anchorage, Alaska, claims the airline investigated his extensive social media posts only after receiving what he describes as “baseless accusations” arising from a red-eye flight conversation in May of 2023 — and that when the company came up with nothing that violated its social media policy, it terminated him anyway.

Sanchez filed the lawsuit in January of 2025 against United Airlines and the union he belonged to while working for the airline, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

In court papers, he claims the airline violated his right to express his religious beliefs and discriminated against him because of his age, which was 52 at the time of the firing two years ago. He said had served as “a loyal United flight attendant” for almost 28 years.

Continued below.

While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
J 9:4-5

When Jesus left, He sent the Holy Spirit. And there is church and a lot of people are doing good works. What does it mean that "night is coming, when no one can work"?

O gracious and holy God,
Give us wisdom to know you, Intelligence to understand you, Diligence to seek you,
Patience to wait for you,
Eyes to behold you,
A heart to meditate upon you,
A life to proclaim you.
To the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

“O glorious St. Benedict, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thy loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Shield me against my enemies, inspire me to imitate thee in all things. May thy blessing be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces of which I stand so much in need, in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Thy heart was always so full of love, compassion, and mercy towards those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. Thou didst never dismiss without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to thee. I therefore invoke thy powerful intercession, in the confident hope that thou wilt hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I so earnestly implore (mention it), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.

Amen.”

Self-explanatory

Looking for new and exciting ways to pray!

Your comments are all welcome!

God bless you all abundantly!

*You are in the Catholic forum*

Permission to post in full

When Protestants say Peter can't be 'the rock,' they have it exactly backwards​

I grew up in the American South, and I was raised in a Protestant family. But when I was six or seven years old, my parents had some kind of disagreement with the elders of our church, and they stopped going. So after that, I was raised nominally Protestant, and we’d go to church only once or twice a year when we visited my grandparents.

When I was a teenager, I was involved in the New Age Movement, but I broke with that when I turned 18.

At age 20, I had a conversion to Christ, and I became a serious Christian—something I’ve been ever since. Following this conversion, I wanted to devote my life to teaching God’s word, and I planned to become a seminary professor and maybe a pastor.

But I still needed to figure out what church I should be part of.

In my hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas, we have dozens of churches—all different kinds. But I realized that what church has services at a time I like is not a good test of whether that church’s doctrine is true. Neither is what church is in convenient driving distance. Or what church has a pastor I like, music I like, or a social group I like. So I shouldn’t let my decision of what church to join be influenced by any of those things, because figuring out what is true is the most important thing.

I thus worshiped in local Protestant churches—since that is how I’d grown up—but I made a point of studying the theology of all the different branches of Christianity.

I studied the different Protestant groups, like Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals. But I also studied the theologies of Eastern Orthodox Christians and even Catholics.

That was saying something, because the church I had my conversion in was very anti-Catholic, so I heard lots of anti-Catholic preaching and read lots of anti-Catholic material. But I still studied what they had to say—even if it was just so I could talk Catholics out of the Church better.

And then, one day, it happened.
I was reading a Catholic book—specifically, Evangelical Catholics by Deacon Keith Fournier. And it had a long quotation from Matthew 16 in it—you know, the “You are Peter” passage:

Continued below.

N.B.: the term "Christian" in this story actually means "Catholic,"--whether Roman or an Orthodox sister-church. That translation applies to almost all news reports from the Middle East.

Priests of the churches in Tabyeh, the last fully Christian town left in the West Bank, have implored help from “international actors” amid a destructive siege by Israeli settlers.
“Israeli settlers are torching holy sites, destroying farmland, and terrorizing families. The priests of Taybeh are crying out for help. The world must hear them — and act,” human rights activist Jason Jones urged on Tuesday....

Click to expand...

Netanyahu's war on Catholics is not a new thing for Israel; it is merely a continuation of a decades-old policy whereby long-settled Catholic communities are systematically eradicated by Jewish "settlers" who lay claim to land--and then find ways to 'remove' the original inhabitants. (Yes, it is a replication of the wars on Indians in the USA.)

Continued below.

Democrats clash with ICE over characterization of marijuana farm raid

I guess this is an admission he was born on Krypton and is not a natural born American. Too late to do anything now.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I would like to humbly ask for your prayers regarding a long-standing and painful situation I’m facing at work. For the past five years, I have been dealing with a colleague who consistently bullies me, pushes responsibilities onto me, and creates a very difficult working environment.

This colleague often acts kind and helpful when our bosses are around, but behaves very differently when they are not. I've observed her being rude to customers, including once shouting at an elderly man who didn’t understand her instructions. When I try to engage kindly with customers, she shuts me down or finds ways to blame me for minor things. As a result, I end up doing the majority of the work while she remains free from accountability.

I’ve brought this up to my supervisors, but unfortunately, they seem to trust her more and see her as incapable of such behavior. I fear that my attempts to speak up have caused them to misunderstand me as someone stirring trouble, which is deeply hurtful because I truly just want a healthy, respectful, and fair working environment.

I’m tired, emotionally worn out, and feel invisible. Please pray that:

God would bring justice and truth to light in this situation.

My bosses’ eyes and hearts would be opened to see what is really going on.

I would not grow bitter or vengeful, but remain faithful, kind, and strong.

God would give me peace and strength as I continue working in this environment.

If it is His will, that He would either change the situation—or lead me to a healthier workplace where I am valued and treated with fairness.


Thank you for reading this and for standing with me in prayer. I know that God sees what people may not, and that He is the God who defends the oppressed. Please keep me in your prayers.

In Christ,
Jane Chai

Photo says it all!

"We are living in a time when false mysticism is a much greater danger than rationalism.
It has now become much easier to play on men’s emotions with a political terminology that sounds religious than with one that sounds scientific.
This is all the more true in an age in which the religious instincts of millions of men have never received their proper fulfillment.
A nation that is starved with the need to worship something will turn to the first false god that is presented to it."

"False mysticism is often viciously anti-intellectual. It promises man a fierce joy in the immolation of his intelligence.
It calls him to throw his spirit into the hands of some blind life-force, considered sometimes as beyond man, sometimes as within himself.
Sometimes this mysticism is political, sometimes religious. It almost always exalts emotion above thought, and its reply to intellectual argument is sometimes a program of systematic violence— the suppression of schools, the destruction of books, and the imprisonment of learned men. Why all this? Because the intelligence itself is regarded with suspicion." p 59-60

https://stmaryscathedral.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/11288825.pdf

This resonated with me in different ways. On has to do with the literal biblical innerrentist who sometime snot only believe in 6 day creation a few thousand years ago but also flat Earth. regardless of what seem more rational, regardless of what our intelligence might indicate, they cling to a personal mysticism that rejects science. Perhaps we all do it to some degree.. believing that our personal insight is special and true no matter what.

Then again there is the political manifestation. We are seeing higher education undermined and science thrown into doubt if it does not support a larger agenda.

Merton wort this in 1951, not long after WWII. Unfortunately I think it is more relevant today than ever with the rise of interest in Christian Nationalism.


"When the truth is not what we want it to be, we twist its image out of shape in our own mind to fit the pattern of our desires. In so doing, we do not hurt the truth itself: we ruin our own spirit." p 56

I also wonder what these meant in my dreams. Surprisingly accurate rendition of Sora of my dreams.

Deport Him!! Came to earth and the USA illegally, blatant criminal!!

Why Kerr County balked on a new flood warning system​

​

The hatred for anything brought to you by Dems is intolerable, and well, what's that quote from Forrest Gump's Mom?

Have you ever actually read the entire terms of use for a new app on your phone? If so, did you understand everything in it? Even if you didn't, you probably still checked that you would “read and agree” to everything in the document. This kind of half-hearted consent is similar to what happens for a lot of Catholics every Sunday. When we get to the creed, many Catholics aren’t really paying attention to what their words mean, but are merely going through the motions. We all know it happens, but the real question is - if we aren’t giving our consent, can we have real conversion?

The answer is no. This is because conversion requires our consent.
Unlike a legal contract, conversion requires more than an outward act.

WHAT IS CONVERSION?
The root of the word “convert” means to “turn around”, “change”, or “transform”. Think of turning from sin, death, evil, and hell to now orient yourself toward God, grace, goodness, virtue, heaven, and everlasting life. It is the transformation of the human heart, by an act of God's grace.

Thus, we sometimes call one who becomes Catholic a “convert” which means they have turned from their previous beliefs and now are Catholic. We all know that many of the most vibrant Catholics have come from other faith traditions or no faith at all, to become Catholics. Why are they so vibrant? It is because they had to consent to becoming Catholics and their consent made all the difference. Consent is found in responding with a “yes” to an invitation by Jesus.

Notice the dynamic of conversion in the Bible:

Continued below.

Canada is my home
And I am proud to live in Canada
I have been living living in Canada
For 45 years
Also I have friends
That are also Canadian
And Canada is a country that is not in war
We have peace keepers
That are fighting over seas
To work towards peace

The Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA failed to include multiple buildings on its flood risk map for Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, according to an analysis by NPR, PBS's FRONTLINE and data scientists.

At least 27 camp attendees died and five others remain unaccounted for after massive flash flooding swept the private Christian summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River on July 4.

These findings come from a new analysis by NPR, PBS's FRONTLINE and data scientists, which show that at least eight buildings, including four cabins housing younger campers at Camp Mystic, are located within FEMA’s designated floodway, which is a dangerous area expected to see high-velocity water.

Continued below.